Monster storm departs Friday and leaves arctic air mass behind
Thursday, December 15, 2022
An arctic air mass has brought prodigious amounts of snow and very cold air to the Steamboat Springs area starting last Monday evening, and temperatures in town are currently in the mid-teens with low single digits near the top of Mt. Werner this mid-morning Thursday. A reinforcing wave of cold air this afternoon will continue the snowfall through today and into Friday and bring the coldest temperatures of the storm overhead. Saturday will stay quite cold despite the appearance of the sun with our average temperatures in the upper twenties not returning until Sunday. More average temperatures and dry weather will start the next work week.
What a snowy work week for the Steamboat Springs area! The Steamboat Ski Resort has reported an incredible 36” of snow at mid-mountain and 46” up top from when the storm started on Monday night until this Thursday morning. And during the day yesterday, 17” of snowfall was reported between 5 am and 4 pm up top which fell at rates around one and a half inches per hour for eleven hours!
And it’s still snowing! The center of the monster storm is currently located in the upper Midwest and is affecting almost the entire continent with winter weather. A wave of Pacific energy has mixed with western part of the storm and is expected to bring a reinforcing cold front through our area this afternoon. Expect some good showers and falling temperatures this afternoon as the front moves through, with another 2-5” to be reported at mid-mountain on a very cold Friday, with temperatures up top starting as low as -10 F and staying negative the whole day and overnight.
The town will not escape the very cold temperatures, with high temperatures on Friday only near ten degrees, around fifteen degrees below our average of 27 F, and low temperatures on both Friday and Saturday near -10 F, also around 15 F below our average of 5 F.
High temperatures on Saturday will approach average, but likely remain below it despite the sunshine, with temperatures finally reaching average on Sunday. The work week looks to start similarly, though another snowy pattern may be in our future starting around midweek as a ridge of high pressure builds over the Aleutian Islands and directs cool and moist northwest flow over our area.
There is weather forecast model disagreement over the location of the best northwest flow and embedded Pacific moisture, and the eventual location is critical for significant snow accumulations over our area. I’ll be back with my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon with details on the possible reappearance of the snow-making machine.
