Light snow is beginning to fall over the mountains of Colorado & Utah this morning as moisture pushes in from the Northwest with the associated cold front. Snow will be on the increase today as the front pushes through Colorado. The snow will continue into tonight before tapering off Sunday morning. It looks like the heaviest snow will fall around the evening hours.
There is not much moisture with this storm but with the cold air pushing in dropping temps into the teens and single digits the snow ratios will be as high as 20-30:1 by tonight. That will turn a quarter to a half an inch of liquid into 6-12 inches across most of the resorts in Northern and Central Colorado including Steamboat. There will even be a few isolated spots where the peaks could pick up a few inches more than a foot.
Here is the 48 hours snowfall forecast from TWC.
The snowfall tapers off to the South and West towards Telluride where 4-8 inches seem more likely. Around Salt Lake we should see 5-10 inches up in the mountains near Snowbird. The snow will then push South into New Mexico where some of the largest amounts of snow have fallen so far this season. Resorts from Taos down to Ruidoso could pick up 4-8 inches through Sunday.
All of this snow will be light with the cold nature and low moisture content of this storm. By the middle of next week we will see another storm push through bringing light amounts of snow from Utah through Colorado.
Some other areas picking up snow over the next few days will be Mt. Baker picking up an inch or two this weekend from the Southern edge of a storm pushing into Canada. Then another storm pushing in Sunday night into Monday will bring 5-10 inches above 5000 ft. with snow levels falling and a few inches possible at resort level below 5000 where it starts as rain. This is the system that will push into the Rockies on Wednesday.
In the Northeast a cold front pushing through tonight will bring colder air and some light snow to the resorts of Northern Vermont. Stowe could pick up a few more inches tonigth on top of the foot they have already picked up this week. It’s not oftern that Stowe will have more than double the snowfall of Squaw on the 7th of January. Hopefully we are talking about Tahoe this time next week. BA