Colorado Daily Snow
By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 13 days ago April 17, 2024
There was powder on Tuesday, maybe another chance on Saturday morning
Summary
Tuesday was a deep powder day with 10-20 inches of snow across the northern mountains. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be mixed with dry weather for most of Colorado and showers over the northern mountains. On Friday night, the tail-end of a storm could bring 3-6+ inches of snow to a few northern mountains, with showers into Saturday. Then Sunday will be sunny and warm.
Short Term Forecast
Tuesday
Tuesday was a deep powder day across the northern mountains with 10-20 inches of new snow.
My experience at A-Basin was a mix of everything – fun late-season stoke, medium-density powder that offered a few faceshots, wind-blown and buffed-out conditions on some aspects, softer and more consistent snow in the trees, and areas where rock-hard moguls under the new snow provided unexpected jolts on some turns.
Snow showers and cool temperatures hung around for a lot of Tuesday with some breaks of sunshine later in the afternoon. This means Wednesday morning's snow conditions should still be mostly cold and fun across the northern mountains.
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, storm energy and moisture will bring occasional showers to the northern mountains. Most mountains will see little snow/rain accumulation and the main impact will be clouds. Any precipitation that does fall will be mixed with a rain/snow line at around 9,000 feet (higher in lighter precipitation, lower in more intense precipitation) and a better chance for rain at mountain bases and snow for most of the skiable terrain.
Friday Night & Saturday
Our next best chance of somewhat deeper snowfall will be from Friday night into Saturday morning.
All northern mountains could see a few inches of snow on Friday night, and the best chance for 3-6+ inches should be around Cameron Pass, Rocky Mountain National Park, Eldora, Winter Park, Loveland, and A-Basin. Temperatures will cool into the 20s on Friday night, so the new snow should be medium density resulting in some soft-ish turns on Saturday morning.
Below is the multi-model average snow forecast through Saturday, with most snow accumulating on Friday night.
Extended Forecast
We will end the weekend with sunny and warm weather on Sunday.
For next week, I think that most of the time will be dry and partly sunny with high temperatures in the 40s. There may be a few showers here and there, though I do not anticipate significant snow/rain accumulation.
Then our next chance for a significant storm could be around the following weekend, April 27-28.
Description: The graphic above shows 51 versions of the European EPS ensemble model (top) on the y-axis (vertical) and 15 days from left to right on the x-axis (horizontal). Each colored rectangle shows a chance for precipitation, with grey equaling little precipitation, green equaling light precipitation, and blues and oranges showing significant precipitation. The more the colors are aligned vertically, the higher the confidence in the forecast.
I'll continue to post daily updates through Saturday, which will include the potential for low-end powder on Saturday morning, and then I will transition to less frequent updates as we wind down the active weather season.
My next update will be Thursday morning.
Thanks for reading!
Joel Gratz
Announcements
Summer Weather: How To Use OpenSnow
As the snow begins to melt and summer conditions quickly take over, remember that you can use OpenSnow as your go-to weather app during the non-winter months.
Get started by going to...
Switch to using your "Summer" favorites list, check the "Weather" tab on both the Favorites screen and any location screen, and avoid poor air quality & incoming storms with our summer-focused map layers in the OpenSnow app.
You can also view the hourly forecast for the next 10 days for any location on Earth in OpenSnow.
- Go to the "Maps" tab.
- Tap anywhere or search for a city.
- Tap "View Forecast".
View → Summer Forecasts
Geography Key
Northern Mountains
Steamboat, Granby, Beaver Creek, Vail, Ski Cooper, Copper, Breckenridge, Keystone, Loveland, Arapahoe Basin, Winter Park, Berthoud Pass, Eldora, Rocky Mountain National Park, Cameron Pass
Along the Divide
Loveland, Arapahoe Basin, Winter Park, Berthoud Pass
East of the Divide
Eldora, Echo, Rocky Mountain National Park, Cameron Pass
Central Mountains
Aspen, Snowmass, Sunlight, Monarch, Crested Butte, Irwin, Powderhorn
Southern Mountains
Telluride, Silverton – north side of the southern mountains | Purgatory, Wolf Creek – south side of the southern mountains