Snowy Pattern Continues Across the West:

A series of storms have produced deep snow totals from the Sierra to the Rockies this week. A storm on Sunday-Monday produced widespread snow totals of 2-3 feet around Tahoe while Mammoth picked up 46 inches. Snow totals over the past week (ending Tuesday) have ranged from 43-78 inches across the Sierra Nevada Range.

The Rockies have also scored the goods with 5-day snow totals (as of Tuesday) including 37 inches at Alta, 34 inches at Taos, 29 inches at Grand Targhee (pictured below), 27 inches at Deer Valley, 26 inches at Silverton, and 25 inches at Sun Valley.

Forecast for Wed (Feb 7) to Thu (Feb 8):

Snow will fall throughout the U.S. Rockies from Arizona to Montana on Wednesday with light snow showers north of the border into BC. Another storm will reach the West Coast on Wednesday with light to moderate snow developing from the Sierra to the Oregon Cascades, before moving into the Southwest on Thursday with additional snow for the Rockies, favoring southern areas.

Forecast for Fri (Feb 9) to Sat (Feb 10):

Additional weaker storms will move through the West from northwest to southeast with light to moderate snow showers expected for the Cascades and the Rockies, while the Sierra should largely miss out on this round. Heavier snowfall is expected further north in Alaska and across Northwest BC.

A weak storm will move across the Northern Great Lakes with rain and snow showers developing, while meaningful accumulations will be confined to areas further north in Ontario.

Forecast for Sun (Feb 11) to Mon (Feb 12):

An unsettled pattern will linger across the West with additional weak storms possible. However, confidence in the details is low as the major weather models are all showing a wide range of solutions as to who may see snow.

A weak disturbance is also expected to track across the Northern Great Lakes and Northern New England near the U.S./Canada border with light snow showers possible. 

Outlook for Tue (Feb 13) to Sat (Feb 17):

The pattern will not be as active across the West with a weak ridge of high pressure setting up along the West Coast. We still may see some weaker storms move through, however, so it may not completely dry out. The East is looking more favorable, however, with a trend toward colder temperatures and increasing snow potential. 

Thanks so much for reading! Next update on Wednesday (Feb 7).

Alan Smith 

NEW: Powder Vision

In addition to our new "Live Snow" data that shows hourly snowfall from nearby weather stations, we built a system to estimate the amount of snow that accumulates on a snow stake camera so that you can track hour-by-hour snowfall for the last 24 hours.

Many ski resorts have snow stake cameras and this allows us to (try to) figure out how much snow falls each hour. We're calling this "Powder Vision".

1. Go to any ski resort screen in OpenSnow with a snow stake camera.
2. Tap the "Snow Report" tab.
3. View the latest snow stake camera snapshot and hour-by-hour snowfall for the last 24 hours.

We have over 60 snow stake cameras available right now and we do our best to add new cams to OpenSnow if we can host them.

Powder Vision and Live Snow are available on OpenSnow.com and in the OpenSnow app with an All-Access subscription. All-Access includes 10-day snow forecasts, high-resolution weather maps, expert local analysis, custom snow alerts, iOS widgets, and much more.

View → Powder Vision Example