The snow stake is dry on Tuesday morning, but that's just the calm before the storm(s).

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 at least a few degrees colder at the base than at the summit.

On Thursday, snow will begin, and we could see snow every day from Thursday through early 2022. A large area of storminess will anchor itself over the west coast of the United States and will send storm energy and moisture east into the Rockies and Colorado every day or two. In this type of weather pattern, I have high confidence that we'll see snow on most days, but I have low confidence about exactly when we'll see the most snow and the total snowfall amounts. 

The main message is that with a lot of snow in the forecast, I expect that the mountain will be able to open a lot of or most terrain around New Years, if not sooner.

In terms of planning powder days, all I can say at this point is that Friday has a good shot at being the first powder day of this storm cycle with 5-10 inches falling on Thursday night and during the day on Friday, and due to strong winds and warmer temperatures, the snow quality will likely be on the thicker side and not super fluffy. That's ok – we'll take the base-building snow for now.

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

JOEL GRATZ
Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com

Snow conditions as of Tuesday morning

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

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

Terrain
* 16 of 23 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.