Wintry weather to start Closing Weekend arrives tonight
Thursday, April 13, 2023
Temperatures are near fifty degrees in the town of Steamboat Springs and forty degrees near the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort under mostly sunny skies this Thursday mid-morning. Our spectacular week of spring weather will end today as a wintry storm on our doorstep brings a couple of cold fronts through the area starting this evening, along with snow at all elevations. High temperatures in town to start the weekend will fall into the thirties before temperatures moderate on Sunday as skies clear behind the departing storm.
The first cold front associated with a storm currently in the Great Basin is passing through Salt Lake City, and will reach our area this evening. The mostly sunny morning today should give way to increasing clouds later this afternoon with breezy winds from the southwest before precipitation breaks out this evening. Rain or a rain-snow mix will start at elevations below mid-mountain before turning to all snow by midnight as temperatures plummet behind the front.
We should see several inches of accumulation on the Friday morning mid-mountain ski report, with that again during the day as high temperatures reach only the mid-twenties near the top of the hill and upper-thirties in town, around twenty five degrees below our average high of 54 F in town.
A colder reinforcing wave of moisture and energy is forecast for Friday night, keeping the snows going and dropping temperatures into the teens near the top of the hill by Saturday morning. The colder temperatures will decrease snow density as the temperatures fall Friday night, with another several inches of fluffier snow producing 3-6” by the Saturday morning report. Snow showers will taper off during the day Saturday in the favorable cold, moist and unstable flow from the northwest with another several inches possible.
With the current mid-mountain snowfall accumulation of 442”, reaching the 450” milestone for the season is certainly a possibility by Saturday afternoon.
If skies clear as expected by Sunday morning, the day will start off chilly but quickly warm as a ridge of high pressure moves overhead behind the departing storm, with high temperatures in town recovering to the low fifties for a pleasant Closing Day.
The following week will start with temperatures warming further toward sixty degrees before a storm may or may not graze our area around midweek. I’ll know more about that possibility in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
