Wednesday will be partly to mostly cloudy and dry with highs in the 30s. Then we'll see two storms before Christmas day.

The first storm will bring snow from late Wednesday night through Thursday night. This storm is moderately strong, though the wind direction will not blow from the west for most of the storm, and that means that our snow totals will likely stay in the 2-4 inch range (a wind from the west is most favorable for snowfall at Steamboat).

There is a chance that we'll get more snow than this if we get lucky and few stronger cells happen to track over Steamboat, or if flow from the west kicks in earlier on Thursday afternoon or evening.

When to ski the best snow: Between Thursday midday and closing time, and also on Friday morning first chair. Watch out for Friday morning as it could be sneaky fun if we do see a little 'extra' snow on Thursday evening.

The first half of Friday should be dry and at least partly sunny with highs in the teens.

Then the second storm will bring snow from late Friday night or early Saturday morning through Sunday morning. It now appears that this storm will track more favorably for Steamboat as the wind will blow from the west for most of the storm (good), thus I am optimistic that we'll see 3-6 inches by Sunday.

When to ski the best snow: Between Saturday midday and closing time, and also on Sunday morning first chair.

Another bit of good news is that the temperature on Sunday and Monday will not get as cold as I feared. Lows will likely be near 0F and highs will be more comfortable, in the single digits to teens. This is about 10-20 degrees warmer than previous forecasts – we'll take it!

Following Christmas day, which will likely be dry, I am becoming more excited about the weather pattern during the final few days of December and in early January. The storm track looks like it will set up close to Colorado with a flow from the west and northwest, and this can be quite favorable for Steamboat. Thanks for reading and check back Thursday morning for an update!

JOEL GRATZ, Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com