Valentine's Day (Sunday) was an "Epic" day at Vail, with 22 fresh inches falling since midweek.
Wow – what a weekend for the mountains around and north of I-70! On Tuesday I will provide a full recap of the last storm and a detailed forecast for the week, but here’s a sneak peek for those wanting to be in the know…
- Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a few fresh inches from Monday afternoon and Monday night. The new snow will focus on Telluride, Silverton, and Powderhorn, with a little less for Crested Butte, Vail/Beaver Creek, and Steamboat.
- Wednesday: Increasing clouds for areas along and north of I-70, but little or no snow will fall.
- Thursday: Becoming mostly cloudy, especially for the northern mountains. Light snow is likely by afternoon, mostly around Steamboat and the I-70 areas. Snow could fall more heavily overnight on Thursday, again favoring areas along and north of I-70 and including the eastern slopes (Eldora, Echo).
- Friday: Lots of uncertainty with this storm…it could be a very good day for areas along and north of I-70, but we’ll have to wait another day or two for more details.
- Saturday: Again, lots of uncertainty. Snow could continue for the northern mountains…
- Sunday: Yep, you guessed it – more uncertainty. Snow could continue, but there’s no way to pin down this storm just yet.
More details coming on Tuesday.
Damn, decided to make a trip to Southern Utah for some mountain biking this weekend. This weekend was good enough to hold me over for awhile though. Curious to see what the next week brings. Thanks for all the work you put in!
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Joel Gratz Reply:
February 15th, 2010 at 6:58 PM
The forecast is still VERY uncertain for this upcoming weekend, so a mtn bike trip seems very reasonable! Plus – if you got the pow this past weekend, it’ll be hard to beat that!
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Joel, great work. What do you think about tonight’s storm? I’m thinking going up to vail/keystone tomorrow(tuesday)
nick
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Joel Gratz Reply:
February 15th, 2010 at 10:10 PM
Just a couple of inches – at most – for Vail and Keystone, with Vail likely getting more. Vail should ski well on Tuesday, but that’s mostly due to the snow they received over the weekend, with the 1-3″ on Monday night just serving to keep things soft and fun.
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the orographics were strong last night…6 in in west vail, 8+ in east
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Joel Gratz Reply:
February 16th, 2010 at 10:11 AM
Thanks for the firsthand report! Apparently, Vail does VERY WELL in northwest (not north, not west) flow. Good to remember for the future and glad the snow is staying soft. This upcoming late week and weekend again look good!
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Joel, I live in Wisconsin and we’re betting our annual ski trip on your forecast. Should we leave Thursday morning for Loveland/Vail or should we wait for the next storm?
Jeff
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Joel Gratz Reply:
February 16th, 2010 at 10:21 AM
Whoa, now that’s pressure:-) In short – I think you should come out this weekend. There are two main storms – one on Thursday and Thursday night, and another one on Saturday and Saturday night. The Thursday storm should favor Vail over Loveland, with maybe 5-10″ at Vail by Friday morning (3-6″ at Loveland). The Saturday storm will favor Beaver Creek over Vail or Loveland, and could produce another 5-10″ Saturday afternoon and night at Beaver Creek. The best powder days are likely Friday and Sunday. With good snow along I-70 over the last week and more on the way, I doubt you could find better conditions than this upcoming weekend. Please comment back here and let us know if you’re coming and how you enjoyed the trip!
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Joel-
Great forecasting. More maps!
thanks
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Joel Gratz Reply:
February 16th, 2010 at 11:42 AM
You got it … thanks for your feedback!
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This is true! Vail does so well under nw flow that I honestly don’t know where the moisture comes from sometimes. I will say though, for midweek, the crowds at vail have been THICK. Lots of tourists the sidecountry, watch your backs out there.
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Hey Joel,
Did another tour at Berthoud on Monday (http://www.glutenfreesnowboarder.com/?p=4380) after missing out on Vail over the weekend but was wondering if you knew a way to track snow totals at Berthoud Pass itself. I’ve see the hourly report from the CAIC (http://www.avalanche.org/~wxstns/grandnet/BERTHOUD.html) and the Snotel report (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/snotel.pl?sitenum=335&state=co) from the Department of Agriculture (glad to see our tax dollars go to a useful purpose) but neither one seems to indicate snow totals. Is there another site I’m missing or a way to interpret this data? Right now I just use Winter Parks totals averaged with Loveland’s but would love to have a more scientific method. Any suggestions?
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Joel Gratz Reply:
February 16th, 2010 at 2:39 PM
You’re on the right track. Jones Pass SNOTEL is nearby (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/nwcc/sntl-datarpt.jsp?site=970&days=7&state=CO) and the Berthoud SNOTEL is right there (http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/nwcc/sntl-datarpt.jsp?site=335&days=7&state=CO).
The SNOTEL sites are primarily used to monitor water supplies, so they most reliably report “snow water equivalent”, which is the depth of the resulting water if you melted down the snow.
Look at the “Snow Water Equivalent” column and the “Year-to-date Precipitation” column. Figure out how much they change (for the latest storm, there was about 0.5″ of liquid equivalent at Jones Pass), and then multiply this number by the snow-to-liquid ratio. For these areas, a good guess will be 15 inches of snow for each inch of liquid, so multiply 0.5 by 15 and you get about 7-8″ of new snow. With cold northwest flow, the ratio might be closer to 20:1, which means 0.5 * 20 = 10″ new, which is right in the range between Loveland’s 15″ and Winter Park’s 8″.
The Berthoud SNOTEL site looks to have mostly missing data, so this isn’t very helpful.
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Thanks Joel. On your advice, took a last minute trip to Steamboat over the weekend and got to introduce my daughter to the powder day, and then the encore powder day. She was having so much fun, she was singing as she skied down Storm Peak in the morning.
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Joel Gratz Reply:
February 16th, 2010 at 2:33 PM
Ha – signing on the way down. I think I was doing the same thing this weekend:-) Glad it was fun!
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give me POWDER@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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