(Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun) Breckenridge, Keystone, Arapahoe Basin and Loveland ski areas Skiers and snowboarders prepare to drop down the slopes of Breckenridge ski area during winter 2022. Winter Park also benefits from a north-northwest wind coming down the Fraser Valley. It just unloads on Vail,” Collentine said. “The air’s funneling right into the Vail Valley right along the Gore Mountains. “There’s a slight little sliver in the valley, and you’re running up to Crested Butte from the west-southwest. But a west-southwest wind “threads the needle” between high peaks, runs into Mount Crested Butte and snows big-time, Collentine said. “Not that they have the most surprises, but I’ve seen the biggest (surprises) out there.”Ĭrested Butte is surrounded by large mountains, the Elk Mountains to the northwest and to the southeast, in the direction of Monarch Pass. “At Steamboat, I have seen the biggest upside surprises,” said Gratz, CEO and co-founder of OpenSnow. When you get the right amount of moisture coming in on a west or west-northwest wind, and a temperature at the summit of about 5 degrees, you can get a “Steamboat surprise,” an unexpected, deep snowfall. Steamboat, in northwestern Colorado, enjoys similar flat landscape to its immediate west, making for strong lift and good snowfall if the mountains in Utah have not stolen all the moisture. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun) Steamboat ski area Skiers weave between the trees plastered by snow at Steamboat ski area during winter 2022. “A southwest wind will crush Wolf Creek,” said Collentine, OpenSnow’s chief operating officer. Loaded with moisture and rising sharply to Wolf Creek Pass, elevation 10,856 feet, these west-southwest and southwest winds make Wolf Creek, near Pagosa Springs, the snowiest resort in the state. Storms coming in from Southern California have no huge mountains to traverse before hitting Wolf Creek in southwestern Colorado. “But in big mountains here in Colorado, in my brain, two-thirds of the time, the wind direction is a really, really big deal.”īelow are conditions that will generate the most snowfall at various resorts in Colorado: When Colorado ski areas get their best snow: Wolf Creek ski area “Sometimes the storm energy itself, the jet stream overhead, or other factors will just overwhelm a bad wind direction and generate the snow,” Gratz said. It also rises when it hits a mountain range. Rising air can be caused by a variety of factors, such as a low-pressure system, when the jet stream is directly overhead, or a storm system that is spinning strongly counterclockwise. Exactly how much is left for Colorado depends on a variety of factors. Some of that moisture becomes snow as the wind crosses mountain ranges west of Colorado, such as the Sierra Nevada in California and the Wasatch in Utah. ![]() Westerly winds high in the atmosphere pick up moisture over the Pacific Ocean. In fact, he joked, the first page of all meteorology textbooks should say: “For interesting weather, you need moisture and rising air.” ![]() Gratz said stormy weather involves a pretty simple recipe. Joel Gratz and Sam Collentine, forecasters at OpenSnow, have a better handle on this than most people, and took some time away from predicting snowfall at Colorado ski resorts to offer clues about when it will snow the most at your favorite Colorado resort, starting with the basics.
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