A solid storm on Tuesday and Wednesday should have most Colorado ski areas in decent shape for this weekend. It’ll be fairly mild as well as dry, with southwest flow bringing in warmer air along with sunny skies for most of this ski weekend.
If you’re looking for knee-deep powder in the trees, go west and south, ski hounds. You’ll struggle to find bad snow anywhere across our fine state, but the San Juans and Aspen, Vail, Beaver Creek and Powderhorn all saw decent snow this week, with well over a foot in each spot. Winter Park and Steamboat both picked up over a foot from the most recent storm as well, so again, you’re going to struggle to find any bad slopes this weekend.
First chair on Sunday looks like a good pick, with most areas receiving a few inches of snow as a quick system moves through overnight Saturday. This system doesn’t look like a barnburner, but it should have skiers smiling with most of Colorado seeing some quick-hitting snowfall just in time for Sunday’s ski day.
Statewide, Colorado is at 111 percent of its snowpack water equivalent season-to-date average, as of Thursday’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) official update. That number helps show us that itap been a good winter so far, and this week’s snow helped push some of Colorado’s southwestern mountains above average alongside our northern mountains. So far this winter, generally speaking, our northern mountain ranges have done better in terms of snowfall, but recent storms have benefited the Southwest.
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Colorado 72-hour hour snow totals through Thursday morning, as measured by individual ski resorts:
Silverton: 37 inches
Aspen: 27 inches
Wolf Creek: 25 inches
Purgatory: 20 inches
Powderhorn: 20 inches
Steamboat Springs: 17 inches
Telluride: 17 inches
Beaver Creek: 15 inches
Vail: 14 inches
Winter Park: 13 inches
Crested Butte: 12 inches
Monarch Mountain: 8 inches
Loveland: 7 inches
Eldora: 7 inches
Copper Mountain: 6 inches
Keystone: 6 inches
Arapahoe Basin: 5 inches
Breckenridge: 5 inches
Driving to and from Denver and the mountains
Friday night: No issues! A smooth drive with no snow expected across the state.
Sunday afternoon: You shouldn’t have any issues driving home either, though a few snow showers on Sunday morning could have driving conditions on the slicker side earlier in the day.
