Early on Monday morning, it's a bright scene as the snowy landscape is illuminated by the setting moon and the rising sun.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will be simple weather days – dry, mostly sunny, and comfortable with temperatures rising into the 20s and low 30s. With mostly clear skies, each morning should present a temperature inversion where readings are colder at the base (single digits and teens) and warmer at the summit (teens and 20s).

On Wednesday night, snow will begin, and we'll see snow for most of Thursday, Thursday night, and Friday. The wind direction will swing from not-so-good on Thursday (from the southwest) to decent on Friday (from the west). Forecasting is tricky when some factors are positive, like a lot of storm energy moving over Colorado, while other factors are negative, like initially warmer temperatures and the wind direction. No matter, I think this storm will deliver the snow that we're hoping for with 5-10 inches by Friday afternoon. While there will be some powder on Thursday, the deeper powder day should be on Friday.

After the day on Friday, I have high confidence that we'll see snow most of the time through about Tuesday, December 28, but I have only medium to low confidence about which days will be the deepest. We might see the second period of intense snow on Saturday and Sunday, with the third stormy period next Monday and Tuesday. At least that's what I'm thinking now, though forecasts 5+ days into the future will continue to adjust, so don't lock in this timing just yet.

The recap is that a snowy period is on the way, the first real powder day could be on Friday, times of snow will continue through at least Tuesday, December 28, and the combination of snowfall across all of the 6+ days of storms could help mountain operations crews to open a lot of terrain by the end of December.

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

JOEL GRATZ
Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com

Snow conditions as of Monday morning

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

Last snowfall:
* 6” Thursday Night & Friday (Dec 16-17)

Terrain
* 13 of 21 lifts
* 44 of 166 trails
* Latest update

Snowpack compared to the 30-year average:
* 72%

By the way…

Join me on Youtube Live on Wednesday, December 22 @ 700pm

I'll answer your questions (last time there were 40+ questions) and talk in detail about the upcoming storms. I share my screen during the entire live discussion and use graphics to visually explain the forecast. The last session was super fun and I hope that you can join this one. The screen is just me presenting, so there's no need to show your potentially unkept-mid-winter-disheveled face – just pop by to listen and watch:-)

YouTube Live: https://youtu.be/_P2P-EXo760

Submit Questions: https://opsw.co/dec2122live

The significant changes to OpenSnow that I've talked about for the last week are now live. If you're an All-Access subscriber (thank you!), you'll see no changes. If you are not an All-Access subscriber, here is an FAQ with more details about the upcoming changes, and we hope that eventually, we'll earn your support. Also, you can watch 2-3 minute videos about these changes made by myself, our Tahoe forecaster BA, and our Utah forecaster Evan. And finally, check out our Utah forecaster Evan's Twitter thread showing exactly how he uses OpenSnow's All-Access features to track powder.