Steamboat Daily Snow
By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 9 months ago February 2, 2024
Snow from Friday night to Sunday morning
Summary
The next storm should be a good one, with snow falling from Friday night to Sunday morning, double-digit accumulations, and powder likely on both Saturday and Sunday.
Update
Thursday
As expected, it was a mixed day on Thursday with some sunshine and some clouds, and the high temperature was in the 30s to low 40s.
Friday
The snow stake is dry on Friday morning, but that will change in 24 hours.
During the first half of the day on Friday, we should see mostly cloudy and dry weather with a high in the upper 20s to low 30s. Then on Friday afternoon, we will start to see snow showers in the area and we might see some accumulation by sunset.
Friday Night to Sunday Morning
From Friday afternoon to Friday midnight, snowfall will be showery/banded with hit-or-miss showers. We might see a quick 2-6 inches of snow, or we might see very little snow.
From Friday midnight through Sunday morning, snowfall should become steady with intense snow at times due to abundant moisture, cooling temperatures, and a favorable wind direction from the west-northwest.
There should be some powder on Saturday morning, conditions should get deeper throughout the day on Saturday, then snow will continue to fall on Saturday night, and Sunday morning could offer the best conditions with fluffy fresh snow on top of soft snow underneath.
Keep your eye on the snow stakes on Saturday night because, in previous storms, I have seen a surprisingly high amount of fluffy snow accumulate due to the lingering moisture, a favorable wind direction, and cooling yet not-too-cold temperatures.
I'll stick with my total snow forecast of 12-18 inches, and many forecast models are showing significantly higher totals, so let's hope for the best.
Temperatures during the storm will be in the teens to low 20s, so weather conditions should be reasonably comfortable.
Sunday Afternoon to Monday
We will have a short period of dry weather from Sunday afternoon to Monday evening, and conditions could be sunny/clear with temperatures in the teens on Sunday and in the 20s on Monday.
Tuesday, February 6 to Saturday, February 10
The weather pattern is going to be active next week. While most snow may target Colorado's southern mountains (not us), the latest model outlooks show an increasing chance of at least decent accumulations here in northern Colorado. We'll figure out the details in the next few days.
My next update will be on early Saturday morning.
Thanks for reading!
JOEL GRATZ
Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com
Snow conditions as of Friday morning
New snow mid-mountain (from the snow stake):
* 0” (24 hours Thursday 500am to Friday 300am)
* 0” (Overnight Thursday 400pm to Friday 300am)
New snow summit (from the snow stake):
* 0” (24 hours Thursday 500am to Friday 300am)
* 0” (Overnight Thursday 400pm to Friday 300am)
Last snowfall:
* 6” Sunday to Friday Night (Jan 21-27)
Terrain
* 23 of 23 lifts
* 181 of 181 trails
* Latest update
Snowpack compared to the 30-year average:
* 97%