Weak storm tonight to be followed by stronger storm on Saturday
Thursday, March 20, 2025
The sunny skies early this Thursday morning on the first day of spring have turned cloudy by late morning in Steamboat Springs with temperatures in the upper-twenties in town and fifteen degrees at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort. A weak storm tonight will be followed by a much stronger storm starting Friday night that lasts into Sunday.
A weakening wave of energy and moisture in the northwest-to-southeast oriented jet stream has crossed the Pacific Northwest coast last night and will move overhead tonight. While the winds will be from our favorable northwest direction and cold air accompanies the storm, limited moisture may only produce an inch or two by the Friday morning mid-mountain report as flurries end by the afternoon.
A much stronger, but warmer, storm has incorporated the remnants of an atmospheric river from the central Pacific and is already bringing precipitation to the Pacific Northwest coast. The center of the storm is forecast to move across Idaho Friday night and Wyoming on Saturday, but energy and moisture moving through the southern part of the storm will bring accumulating snow to our area starting Friday night.
There is limited cold air associated with the storm, and mountain-top temperatures in the twenties will create denser snow than we saw with the storm starting Tuesday at noon that left 10” of high-quality powder at mid-mountain and 15” up top by noon on Wednesday. That storm also featured snowfall rates of one and a half inches per hour at mid-mountain and two inches per hour up top between 11:15 am and 4:40 pm.
Snowfall should start Friday evening, and pick up around midnight with snowfall rates over an inch per hour at times, leading to 3-6” by the Saturday morning mid-mountain report. Another 4-8” may fall during the day with the storm winding down Saturday night after an additional 2-5” by Sunday morning.
While snow showers may linger Sunday morning, they should end for a time as a ridge of high pressure begins to build over the West Coast behind the storm and ahead of a strong storm forecast to develop over the Aleutian Islands by Friday. A weak wave of energy and moisture rounding the top of the building ridge may bring some non-accumulating and high-elevation showers on Monday, but warming temperatures and mostly sunny skies should be with us for the workweek starting Tuesday.
High temperatures in town through the weekend will be cool and only in the high thirties to low forties, between five and ten degrees below our average of 47 F. But we should be near average by Monday despite the clouds before high temperatures warm into the sixties by midweek under mostly sunny skies.
So savor the last wintry storm in this series that started Tuesday, and check back to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon for more details on what’s looking like a very nice springlike workweek.
