Short-Term Forecast

The snow forecast for the rest of this week and through the upcoming weekend shows big powder potential (1-3 FEET) for the central Rockies, especially for California, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, southern Montana, and northern New Mexico. These areas should have powder on Thursday, Friday, and/or Saturday depending on the exact location.

In the northeast, we’ll see cold weather on Thursday and Friday, but then a storm will track to the west of the region during the weekend, so warm air will invade from the south and most of the precipitation will turn from snow to an icy mix to all rain.

Even though the weather in the northeast will shift warmer over the weekend, this 4-5 day forecast is looking favorable with big snow in the west and a few days of cold air in the east, which always helps with snowmaking.

Next week, from December 19-23, the weather pattern while shift a little bit.

In the west, snow will return to British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, which has been dry and cold for the better part of the last two weeks. This storm track should also bring snow to the northern and central Rockies.

In the east, we will once again have a roller coast of the week with cold air to start and then a warmer storm around Friday, December 23rd. Most mountains in the northeast already have about 25-50% of their terrain open, so a brief 12 hour period of rain shouldn’t reduce the trail count too much.

Thanks for reading and I hope you’ve been enjoying the early-season snow (or have plans to do so soon)!

JOEL GRATZ

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