Megan gets a close look at the New Years powder at Vail.
What a gift for the end of the holiday week and weekend. There were some surprisingly high snow totals leading up to the last day of 2009 (19″ Powderhorn, 18″ Monarch, 17″ Winter Park, Beaver Creek, and Telluride), and Colorado celebrated the opening of 2010 with additional light and fluffy (25″ snow : 1″ liquid) weekend snow with 12″ Steamboat, 11″ Vail and Copper. For the full snow totals from Tuesday 12/29 through Sunday 1/3, see the bottom of this post.
I am very impressed by the fantastic comments people are leaving on each post. Most of the comments talk about current conditions at the mountains, which is very helpful and provides much more usable information compared to looking at a webcam. You can access past posts from the homepage…so take a second and leave a comment about your experiences (resort or backcountry) and stop back to this site to read about what others are seeing.
Forecast
- Monday: Mostly sunny, light wind, and comfortable temperatures.
- Tuesday: More clouds cover the sky in the central and northern part of Colorado, but it stays dry and relatively warm. Winds will being to increase.
- Wednesday: Snow starts around Steamboat Tuesday night and spreads south through the day. Expect about 3-6″ to fall through the day for most locations, but favored locations like Steamboat, Winter Park, and along the divide at Loveland and Abasin might see up to double digits. Winds will be strong and the temperatures will be in the teens at the warmest. This is a tough storm to forecast and may result in some surprises (lower or higher snow totals…stay tuned to the blog or follow my updates on Twitter @gratzo).
- Thursday: Colder temperatures with some leftover snow across the south. Arctic air will push temperatures on the eastern plains below zero, and some of the this bitterly cold air may invade the mountains as well making for a cold start (and day) on Thursday.
Move the map or zoom in for a better look. Click on the shaded areas of the map for exact snow amounts. Also, click on the mountains to see locations of each resort.
View CPF: Snow Forecast, January 6-7, 2010 in a larger map
It’s a long way out, but Fri/Sat/Sun look to be dry and warmer, with the next chance of snow on Monday.
“Frozen” Trailer
I don’t even know what to say. Maybe we should stick to rope tows?
Snow totals Tue 12/29 – Sun 1/3
| RESORT | TOTAL |
| Steamboat | 26.0 |
| Winter Park | 26.0 |
| Vail | 23.0 |
| Beaver Creek | 23.0 |
| Monarch | 21.0 |
| Powderhorn | 19.0 |
| Copper | 17.0 |
| Telluride | 17.0 |
| Wolf Creek | 15.0 |
| Silverton | 13.0 |
| Breckenridge | 12.0 |
| Aspen Mountain | 12.0 |
| Crested Butte | 11.0 |
| Abasin | 11.0 |
| Keystone | 10.0 |
| Durango | 9.0 |
| Loveland | 8.0 |
| Aspen Highlands | 8.0 |
| Eldora | 7.0 |
| Snowmass | 6.0 |
| Cooper | 6.0 |
| Sunlight | 4.0 |
| Buttermilk | 4.0 |
| Echo | 4.0 |
Sweet, we took the last four spots.
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ted mahon – My mistake. Some addition problems on Monday morning. The snow totals list is fixed, and the Aspen areas are not in the basement anymore. Still, they weren’t the winners this time around.
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Vail was amazing yesterday. First time in my life i had waist deep with some chest shots…first healthy winter in CO. I have the perma-grin this morning
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Joel,
How about mixing in some backcountry snow totals (or snotel reports) into your forecasts as well as post storm reporting?
As much as I love to know how much snow VAIL got, I’m just not “epic” enough to own an “epic” pass…
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Bryan – Will do…thanks for your interest. SNOTEL sites need a little more babysitting than resort reports since the data is sometimes inaccurate and new snowfall needs to be interpreted from the amount of new liquid equivalent that was recorded. A quick look at the Tower SNOTEL site north of Steamboat shows 3-4 feet of new snow…one and a half to twice as much snow as Steamboat. This difference is pretty standard up there…
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Tower is definitely a pocket. On average, it blows away all other Colorado Snotel sites by over 10″ of SWE with a whopping 51in (30 yr average). Thats probably on the order of 600 inches of snow, probably more. And as some of my steamboat buddies who frequent nearby Buff Pass will confirm, its for real. Next nearest is Schofield Pass – around 37in – only then followed by ‘The most snow in CO’ Wolf Creek at 35in.
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Erik – Right on for the Tower site…good analysis. Fun to see the big totals up there!
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Joel,
Keep up the good work. I’d love to see some BC reports as well but understand it’s a bit more difficult to accurately report. CAIC does a good job anyway.
Berthoud Pass was sweet today, a little tagged up from the weekend but pockets of nearly knee deep were available. COLD early in the AM. Winter Park snow quality is pretty good all things considered. Coverage a different story, as there is still a LOT of stuff to hit out there (rocks, trees, stumps, texans). Most have not ventured in to the trees yet, limiting skiable terrain big time.
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Jesse Howe – great report from Berthoud Pass…many thanks! The recent snow nicely covered the terrain in the trees, but it’s still a false cover for most spots, and the logs and stumps aren’t far below the surface. Riding with some caution is still a good rule.
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I second Jesse’s comments. We enjoyed a fabulous powder day on Thursday at Mary Jane and ventured into the trees to hit all sorts of rocks and trees on the lower sections of Sunnyside and Panoramic lifts. Now I gotta get some core work on the ‘board but it was all worth it as we found some great lines and face shots. Thanks, Joel, for the pow-alerts!
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Puneet – good to have a second opinion…thanks much for the report!
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Copper was pretty good today. Decent powder in the trees and edges of runs off the Timberline lift. However, as with Winter Park, more snow is needed to cover up all the stumps, bushes, rocks, etc.
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Jon Gesink – Thanks for adding Copper into the mix…all reports help!
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