This week's snowcast: Future doesn't look too bright

Talking about snow this week, memories of the past might make you happier than forecasts of the future, so let’s take a look at last weekend’s storm and which areas saw the most snow. The winners with 20 inches were Wolf Creek in the southern San Juan mountain range and Irwin, a snowcat skiing operation just west of Crested Butte.

Surprisingly, though, the western Colorado mountain of Powderhorn came in second with 18 inches, largely because a heavy snow band stalled over the area on Saturday night and dumped 1-2 inch per hour snowfall for a few hours. Most other ski areas saw at least 6 inches, with double-digit totals reported from Telluride, Aspen, Vail, Steamboat, and Winter Park.

That was the good news, but the future doesn’t look as bright. On a positive note, temperatures will be cold enough during the next week for most resorts to make snow overnight and resort openings should proceed on schedule. However, when it comes to fresh snow in the forecast, I’m sorry to report that there isn’t going to be much (or any) between now and Thanksgiving.

A few weak storms will move across Colorado from Thursday night through Monday and it’s very possible that some resorts could see a few inches of fresh snow, but the weather forecasting models are not confident in the exact track of these storms, and therefore neither am I. Also, no matter the exact storm track, none of the storms will bring cold air or good storm energy to help the atmosphere convert moisture into snow, so I’m not getting my hopes up.

Lots of snow will fall along the West Coast where they will measure it in feet, and I’m hopeful that the weather pattern will change later this month so that this West Coast storminess pushes east toward Colorado.

I remember past seasons where November was dry but the snow fell consistently in December, so let’s hope this is another one of those years.

For snow forecasts targeted to your favorite ski areas visit OpenSnow.com.