Thursday was dry, cloudy, and still warm with a high in the 30s.

Then, finally, after a 10-day break, the snow returned on Thursday night into Friday morning as the mid-mountain snow stake picked up 1 inch. That’s not a lot, but it was great to see the flakes.

During the day on Friday, moisture and weak storm energy will hang around and we should see snow showers throughout the day into the early evening. Amounts could be anything from a coating to a couple of inches if we get lucky with just the right amount of energy, wind direction, and moisture.

From later Friday night through Saturday morning, we should see a lull in the snow with some breaks of clearing skies.

Then from about Saturday 10 am to Saturday 10 pm, a final and stronger piece of energy will push through Colorado and we should see steady snow with healthy accumulations of 3-7 inches. This means that the best (softest) snow on the mountain should be during either Saturday afternoon’s last chair or Sunday morning’s first chair. While this wave of snow will actually be a little more intense to the south of the mountain, we will be fortunate to get good accumulations and it’ll be fun to wake up on Sunday morning to a winter-time scene with fresh snow on the ground, clearing skies above, and chilly temperatures near 0°F.

The weather on Sunday and Monday morning should be dry.

The next storm will then arrive sometime later on Monday or Monday evening with snow continuing into Tuesday. I’ll stick with my earlier estimate for this storm with 3-6 inches of accumulation and the softest turns could be on Tuesday morning.

The end of next week, December 16-18, is still up in the air. Some models push the storm track just a bit to our north while other models bring another storm or two right over Colorado. I figure that we’ll see at least some snow between the 16-18th but I just can pin down the details yet.

Thanks for reading and check back each morning for daily updates!

JOEL GRATZ
Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com

Snow conditions as of Friday morning

New snow mid-mountain:
* 1” (24 hours Thursday 500am to Friday 500am)
* 1” (Overnight Thursday 400pm to Friday 500am)

Last snowfall:
* 1” Thursday Night to Friday (Dec 11)

Terrain
* 13 of 23 lifts
* 31 of 166 trails
* Latest update

Snowpack compared to the 30-year average:
* 88%