Thanks to the hard work of the snowmaking team, Four Points lift will open Wednesday with the following trails: middle Giggle Gulch, Park Lane, Short Cut, upper Rainbow, Skyline, upper Burgess Creek Lift Line, upper Hurricane and White Out.

And thanks to the atmosphere, we have natural snow in the forecast with two storms in the next 3-4 days.

The first storm will move from north-to-south over Colorado on Wednesday night and Thursday, and this should bring snow to Steamboat starting on Wednesday early evening and taper off to snow showers by Thursday morning. Snowfall should be in the range of 1-2 inches by Thursday morning.

I am keeping my snow forecast a bit on the conservative side because, by later Wednesday night, the wind will be blowing from the north and northeast, which are not ideal directions for Steamboat (we want a wind from the west or west-northwest). Despite the non-ideal wind direction, there should be a bit of fresh snow to ski on Thursday morning, with additional snow showers during the middle of the day on Thursday when the wind swings back to blow from the northwest.

Following the dry weather for most of Friday and Saturday, a similar storm will arrive on Saturday night and should deliver 1-3 inches of snow to Steamboat with fresh turns likely on Sunday morning.

After that, December 18-20 should be dry, and then a few storms should move close to Colorado between about December 21-26 though I do not know exactly how these systems will affect Steamboat. Hope for the best and stay tuned!

JOEL GRATZ, Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com