Snows to finally arrive and bookend the weekend
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Temperatures are in the upper thirties with overcast skies on this Thanksgiving noon in Steamboat Springs, on their way to the mid-forties as some sun appears this afternoon. While Friday will start mostly sunny, increasing afternoon clouds will precede a strong cold front, bringing snowfall to all elevations later Friday into Saturday. Another storm in favorable northwest flow will bring more snowfall to our area from later Sunday into Monday, with a third storm possible around midweek.
Our dry start to the winter season mercifully looks to end by Friday night as a series of ridges of high pressure build over and north of Alaska, directing more cold air from the North Pole southward and placing our area in favorable northwest flow. A Pacific storm moving under the ridge through the Gulf of Alaska is currently bringing precipitation to the Pacific Northwest. It will ingest some cold western Canadian air as it moves through Idaho early Friday, bringing a strong cold front through our area Friday night.
While Friday will start with some morning sun, allowing high temperatures to rise to the upper forties, over ten degrees above our average of thirty-six degrees, increasing afternoon clouds will mark a pattern change that will start a period of cold and unsettled weather in favorable northwest flow. Energy ejecting out ahead of the storm may start snow showers as early as Friday afternoon, with light to moderate snow showers as the storm moves across Friday night. The cold front will follow before sunrise, continuing the snow showers into the morning and leaving 3-6” of snow at mid-mountain by the Saturday morning ski report.
Below-average temperatures will follow the front, with high temperatures on Saturday only around thirty degrees in town and the teens up top. Clouds will decrease by Saturday afternoon, perhaps allowing for some sun that may also appear Sunday morning, but the next storm will start another round of snow by Sunday afternoon.
This storm will feature the northern part of the weather system now splitting over the Aleutian Islands. It is forecast to cross the Vancouver coast on Saturday and, due to a quickly building ridge of high pressure behind it in the Gulf of Alaska, be forced into the Great Basin early Sunday. It too will ingest cold air from western Canada, starting snow showers by Sunday afternoon that will continue into Monday morning.
Snow accumulations could be similar to Friday night’s storm, though forecast amounts are still changing in the weather models. After a short break, unsettled weather is forecast to return midweek.
Your snow dances are working, so keep up the good work! Enjoy the snowfall that truly starts the winter season over the Thanksgiving weekend, and I’ll have more details on the snow amounts expected by Monday morning and the possible midweek storm in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
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