Tuesday morning’s clouds gave way to sunshine for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be mostly dry with a mix of clouds and sunshine. On Wednesday, there could be strong wind gusts near the summit. Also, I wish I could say that these days would all be sunny, but lingering moisture will produce clouds. There might be enough moisture to coax the atmosphere into creating a few snowflakes, especially on Friday, but I doubt we’ll see any accumulations.

From Friday night through Sunday night, pieces of storm energy will move across Colorado and bring snow to most of the state. The wind direction during most of the storm will be from the southwest, which is NOT favorable for intense snowfall and deep totals for us. But, any piece of stronger storm energy which tracks over us can overwhelm the bad wind direction and create periods of moderate to intense snow.

Putting this together, we should wind up with 3-6 inches from Friday night through Sunday. We will wind up on the low side if we are unlucky and see fewer pieces of storm energy, or we could go above the high end of the forecast if multiple pieces of storm energy track over the mountain. The best chance for soft turns will be on Saturday and again on Sunday.

There could be a lull in the snow on Sunday night or Monday, then another batch of storm energy from the southwest should track over Colorado later Monday into Tuesday and perhaps could linger into Wednesday morning. This means that there will be another chance for soft turns, likely on Tuesday and maybe Wednesday morning as well.

The final few days of January into early February have a lower chance of snow as the main area of storminess will park itself far to our west over the west coast. However, a lower chance of snow does not mean zero chance for snow, and there could still be pieces of storm energy that would bring us snowfall.

Looking ahead to early February, a few models now show a higher chance for snow around February 2-4 so I am keeping my eye on this time period but that’s too far away (15 days) to get excited as the forecast is likely to change.

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

JOEL GRATZ
Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com

Snow conditions as of Wednesday morning

New snow mid-mountain:
* 0” (24 hours Tuesday 500am to Wednesday 500am)
* 0” (Overnight Tuesday 400pm to Wednesday 500am)

Last snowfall:
* 8” Sunday Night to Monday (Jan 17-18)

Terrain
* 20 of 23 lifts
* 142 of 166 trails
* Latest update

Snowpack compared to the 30-year average:
* 87%