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Conditions

• New Snow (Mid Mountain snow stake)
  • 5” Tuesday 500am to Wednesday 500am (24 hours)
  • 4” Tuesday 500pm to Wednesday 500am (12 hours)

• New Snow (Upper Mountain sensor)
  • 7” Tuesday 500am to Wednesday 500am (24 hours)
  • 6” Tuesday 500pm to Wednesday 500am (12 hours)

• Last Snowfall
  • 5-7” Monday Night to Tuesday Night (November 25-27)

• Snowpack
  • 160% of the 30-year average

• Terrain
  • 0 of 17 lifts
  • 0 of 147 trails

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Thanks to the support of the Colorado Flights Alliance and the Telluride Tourism Board, the Telluride Daily Snow is back for this 2024-2025 winter! 

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Tuesday recap

Well, this was a disappointment. On Tuesday, I expected 4-8+ inches of snow, and it never materialized with only about 1 inch of accumulation. Most surrounding weather stations showed a lot more snow than Telluride, and I'm not sure why we were on the (very) low end. Temperatures were warm, which can prevent a lot of snow accumulation, but this didn't stop surrounding areas from seeing significant accumulation. Huh.

Tuesday night recap

On Tuesday night, the snow finally turned on and the mountain picked up 4-6 inches as of about 3 am on Wednesday morning. This was below my expectation of 5-10 inches, but at least it was something.

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning between 3 am and 6 am, the mountain received another 3 inches of accumulation, which gives us an 8-10 inch storm total. Again, not what we were expecting, mostly because of the low-end totals on Tuesday, but 8-10 inches is still a decent haul in the scheme of things. And we may see a few hours of additional snowfall on Wednesday morning.

Thursday (Opening Day)

Opening day will occur on Thursday, November 28, immediately following this storm cycle, and it should be a fun opening day with fresh/soft snow on the ground and sunny skies behind the storm. The morning temperature will be around 10°F and the afternoon high temperature will be around 20-25°F.

Longer Range

Unfortunately, there is no change to the upcoming forecast.

Thanksgiving Day will be the start of an extended period of dry weather that should last into mid-December.

Temperatures will be in the teens and 20s on Thursday and Friday, then we'll slowly warm up with highs around 30°F lasting into mid-December. Most of the snow and cold air will stay over the east coast of the United States during the next two weeks, leaving us mostly or completely dry.

The good news is that this week's snowfall will give us a solid base, more terrain should open on and just after Thanksgiving, and the low sun angle of early December will help to preserve our snowpack.

At various times during the first 10-15 days of December, storms may clip Colorado as they track from central Canada toward the U.S. east coast, so there could be infrequent times of clouds and snow showers. But largely, the first part of December will be dry.

The longer-range forecasts do show a tendency for the weather pattern to change starting around the middle of December, and I'll keep an eye on this. Hopefully, the second half of December will be snowier than the first half of the month.

Tap below to see our forecasts:

• Telluride Ski Area (11,000 ft)
• Lizard Head Pass (10,300 ft)
• Dallas Divide (9,000 ft)
• Placerville (7,300 ft)

Best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving, and my next update will be on Thursday morning.

Thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ
Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com