Reiterating the current forecast

Thursday, February 13, 2014

The Steamboat ski area reported 3” at mid / summit this morning, and their 11am update reported an additional 1” mid / 2” summit. A couple of embedded waves in moist northwest flow pass by the area tonight and again later Friday into Saturday morning, keeping snow going through Saturday. Another fast moving wave passes over the area Sunday night increasing snowfall again before the sun reappears later Monday.

I really don’t have many changes to the previous forecast other than expecting more snow from the Sunday night wave. About 6-12” of snow are expected by tomorrow morning with tonight’s wave as there is some cool air associated with it. Snows decrease early in the day and temperatures warm, however, snow should increase later in the day as the second and weaker wave grazes our area that evening into Saturday morning. I expect another 4-8” for the Saturday morning report as very light snow or snow showers continues through the much of the day.

Snows will lighten and may end, or not, late Saturday or early Sunday before the last fast moving wave in this storm cycle affects our area by late in the day Sunday. This is a compact and fast moving system that will likely leave 4-8” on hill for the Monday morning report.

We should have a beautiful couple of days with seasonably warm temperatures early in the workweek before a grazing wave passes near our area midweek. The model trends have been weakening this storm, and the current forecast for precipitation is uncertain.

A cold and significant trough is forecast by several models to enter the west coast later in the workweek. This may begin affecting our weather by the end of the workweek as the flow backs to the southwest ahead of the storm, and a cold and snowy weekend may be in our future as the trough is currently forecast to move over our area around then.