Looking back on Friday morning, the northern mountains started out with a sunny day and plenty of soft snow / powder / leftovers from Thursday’s fluffy surprise. There was also a beautiful standing lenticular cloud just east of the continental divide, signaling reasonably strong winds and lingering moisture in the middle of the atmosphere.

On Friday night, a weak storm moved over the northern mountains. Snow reports as of Saturday at 500am show 1-2 inches for most northern mountains, and there could be light additional accumulations through Saturday at noon.

From Saturday afternoon through Sunday night, most of the state will see dry weather. There could be a few snow showers on Saturday night and Sunday over the mountains near and north of I-70 but accumulations should be light or nothing.

Looking ahead to next week, we were expecting three storms and that still looks like the case. Each storm looks to be of weak or maybe moderate strength, so I am not expecting big snow totals from any of them, though the combination of multiple storms across five days should lead to soft skiing and fun turns.

Storm #1 will bring snow during the day on Monday and maybe through Monday evening. Accumulations should be in the 2-4 inch range, maybe up to 6 inches in some lucky spots. The northern mountains should be favored.

Storm #2 will bring snow on Wednesday and maybe through Wednesday evening. Again, accumulations should be in the 2-4 inch range, maybe higher. This system will take a hard right turn as it moves across the Rockies and dive south through our state.

Storm #3 is the wildcard and might bring snow on Friday. If it does track over Colorado, Friday and/or Saturday morning could offer soft turns, especially for the northern mountains. However, the storm might track just a bit too far to the east to bring us much snow. We’ll see.

Even though none of these systems may bring a big powder on any single day, I love the consistency of having snow every other day, and with the chance for storms comes the chance of high-side surprises.

It is becoming more likely that we’ll see two or three dry and warm days from about Saturday, February 1 through Monday, February 3.

And then it is becoming more likely that we’ll see a storm on Tuesday, February 4 with chances for multiple moderate-to-strong storms between February 4 to February 8. The overall pattern forecast by all models for these dates looks encouraging.

I am encouraged that a few days ago, models were showing this potentially active pattern, and models are still showing it. There is some chance that the storm track could stay too far south or east to bring us big-time snow, but models are trending away from the "too far east" scenario and toward the above scenario, which could be very good for us.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Sunday morning.

JOEL GRATZ

PS – Starting on Thursday, January 23rd, we released a fresh update to the OpenSnow iOS app. This update is based on feedback from OpenSnow users during the past year, along with ideas from our employees and forecasters (including me:-) because, like you, we are obsessed with finding great snow! A refreshed design for Android will be coming soon. Click here to see a few screenshots of the new design.

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, 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