SUMMARY:
The current storm is still producing snow showers over northern Utah and eastern Colorado. The parent low is well east of Denver where 10-20 inches fell in some spots of the eastern plains. Utah took the grand finale last night with 16 inches of blower pow in Little Cottonwood Canyon with respectable amounts elsewhere. If you are in Colorado resorts that had closed terrain on Wednesday will offer epic conditions on Thursday. There are plenty of leftover stashes.
FORECAST:
There is not much to discuss for new snowfall for the next 12 hours (Snow showers lingering along the Front Range) as the bulk of moisture is now falling well east of Denver and into the Dakotas. I had forecasted storm totals for Utah in the 12-17 inch range wich held true except for an over performance in the Cottonwoods where 34 inches fell in the past 48 hours (Oops). NW winds and very cold temps created Little Cottonwood magic with roughly half of those numbers in Big Cottonwood (Prefers S or SW). Park City also scored decent amounts in the 13-inch range with plenty of snow during the day Wednesday.
If you're looking at the Vail Resorts weather reports in Colorado this morning, I think someone messed up the overnight totals (Report shows most snow was last night versus Wednesday).
Telluride and Wolf Creek broke the benchmark of 100-inch mid-mountain bases. Snow showers will continue, especially in the Southern San Juan Range. Taos also broke the 100-inch Mid-mountain with over 2 feet of snow that were not skied yesterday (Most lifts were closed due to winds). If you are near New Mexico get there right now!
Some of the deepest snow on Wednesday was falling closest to the Front Range with Eldora at a whopping 19 inches in just 8-10 hours! Here is a picture of the new snow cam from late yesterday. Apparently whoever made this never expected this much snow in a short time period (Logo is gone)
The next several days feature high pressure for the west. (Image- Sunday 18, March). This high pressure is likely to continue into the middle of next week.
EXTENDED FORECAST:
Looking ahead into next week there appears to be a weak system dropping into California by midweek that could favor the southern Sierra and 4 corners at some point Wednesday or Thursday. There may also be a weaker system in the 4 corners a bit earlier next week.
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The extended range brings a few more troughs into the west, possibly stronger as we approach the March 24th timeframe. This may push moisture further north than the midweek storm but likely to also favor the southern Rockies (Too far out to predict at this point). Low confidence in positioning.
Looking beyond that it's likely we will see an additional system to close out March, so let's hope these ensembles are correct showing a decent finish to a very snowy month!
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Powderchaser Steve
