Hello all! Jordan is out of town, I don’t know why he would leave when the Indian Peaks are skiing so well right now! In the meantime, I’m picking up the weather forecasts. We have a true upslope storm hitting us early Tuesday morning. Models show an east/northeast flow, however, the winds aren’t as strong and in the right directions to give us a true dump that makes it up toward the divide – but will still have enough moisture to give us a refresh. The highest storm totals appear to be for the foothills, with snowfall totals diminishing toward Peak to Peak highway. The storm is fast-moving and should fall mostly in the morning and wrap up for our patrol zone by midday Tuesday.
5″ – WRF Model
4″ – Canadian and UK Met Models
3.5″ – American Model
3″ – European Model
In addition to model run results, I like using the NWS conglomerate data product which provides confidence percentages for snowfall totals. Eldora has a 100% chance of seeing >1″ of snow, 78% for >2″, 47% for >4″, 25% for >6″, and 0 for >8″. So, there’s a 1 in 4 chance of a decent powder day for our zone!
There is a dusting coming Thursday with 1.5″ per the American Model, 1″ from the UK Met Model, and a dusting from the European model. Long-range forecasts show a shot of a few inches next Tuesday night.
Retrospective Discussion
Eldora reported 2″ of snow on Friday night, exactly what the European, Canadian, and American global models all predicted. Interestingly enough, the Eldora snowstake has been “down for maintenance” for a bit now which makes visual verification harder – however from what I skied there on Saturday afternoon that felt about right. Interestingly, local SnoTels including Rollinsville, Allenspark, and Ned proper all reported 4-5″ in that storm Friday night.
– Ben (Monday 1/24 evening)
