Strong wintry storm to start Monday night
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Temperatures are around forty degrees under cloudy skies this Sunday mid-afternoon in Steamboat Springs and twenty-five degrees at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort. A final wave in this series that started Friday night will pass overhead tonight before a break on Monday. A much colder winter-like storm crossing the West Coast will bring a strong cold front through our area Monday night, accompanied by moderate to heavy snow showers expected to last through Tuesday. Lighter snow showers and cold temperatures look to stick around into next weekend.
The two waves on Friday and Saturday nights left six inches of snow at mid-mountain and ten inches up top by the Sunday morning report, with another inch at mid-mountain and two inches falling up top this morning.
A final wave in this series will pass through Colorado tonight, possibly leaving as much as an inch or two at mid-mountain, before a break on Monday. But as discussed in last Thursday’s weather narrative, a replacement storm is now affecting the West Coast, and after ingesting some cold western Canadian air, will intensify as it moves through the Great Basin starting Monday night. While the storm will split by Tuesday, with the eastern part traveling over Colorado and the western part diving south toward Baja, there is enough cold air and forcing to bring significant wintry weather to the West.
Our area can expect a strong cold front Monday night, with moderate to heavy snow showers along and behind the front continuing through Tuesday, accompanied by gusty westerly winds as high as 50 mph at pass level , making travel difficult. We could see 4-8” by the Tuesday morning mid-mountain report, with that again during the day, along with much colder temperatures. While mountain-top temperatures will start the day in the low-teens, high temperatures in town will be mired in the thirties, over fifteen degrees below our average of fifty, which will be a shock after the recent warm spring weather, especially since it will be accompanied by several inches of snow.
While the leading storm will be east of our area by Wednesday, the storm moving toward Baja will be reinforced by more western Canadian cold air so that the entire West remains in a cold and unsettled weather pattern. Intermittent snow showers will continue Tuesday night into Wednesday morning at all elevations, with temperatures similar to Tuesday. While the bulk of the snowfall will be over by Tuesday afternoon, some continued accumulations in town and 1-4” on the hill are possible for the Wednesday morning report.
More energy dropping into the backside of the Baja storm keeps unsettled but slightly warmer weather around on Thursday before the storm eventually forms an eddy on Friday, which may or may not affect our area heading into next weekend. So enjoy another blast of wintry weather, and check back for details on next weekend’s weather in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
