The snow has been falling over the Rockies this past week bringing up to 3 feet of snow in many places, but we will have a break the next 5 days as the ridge builds in.
Resorts in Colorado have picked up a few to several inches in the past week with the most down near Telluride with 17 inches and Wolf Creek the same. Many other resorts from Montana down to Arizona picked up around 3 feet of snow. In Utah most resorts picked up around 3 feet of snow including Snowbird. Up in Wyoming Jackson picked up over a foot but Grand Targhee picked up close to 3 feet. Sun Valley, ID and Big Sky, MT also picked up close to 3 feet. In Arizona the Snow Bowl picked up just over 3 feet and then over to New Mexico around a foot for Taos and our friends at Ski Apache.
The ridge has now built in and the next few storms that hit the West coast will be deflected North up into Northern Idaho and Northwestern Montana. There could be several inches to a foot for those areas through Friday. You can see the snowfall arch from the West Coast up over the ridge over the Rockies into Canada on the snowfall forecast through Monday morning.
The storm spinning through CA over the weekend will push East into the Rockies Monday afternoon through Tuesday. It will be able to push the ridge East but the storm will be pretty weak bringing only 3-6 inches to most areas from Park City up to Jackson and over to Steamboat. Some of the forecast models show the storm going to the North of Colorado, and some bring up to a foot in Jackson. Here is the GFS snowfall forecast through Tuesday.
The next system moves into the Pacific NW next Wednesday and then pushes East into the Northern Rockies Thursday into Friday. We will have to see how strong and amplified the ridge over the Rockies gets by the end of next week. Some forecast models show the storm coming far enought South to bring a foot or more to Jackson with maybe a few inches down Utah near Snowbird. Other models show the ridge keeping the storm up into Northern Idaho and Montana. It will be another miss for Colorado as the storm track stays well to the North.
Overall the pattern over the next 10 days does not look good for big snows in most areas of the Rockies. Still time for big snows in April though. BA