Jan 8, 2025
GFS 24 hr Snowfall thru Jan 14
This model run shows snowfall over a 24-hour period.
Euro and GFS Total Snow thru Jan 21 (click/animate)
This model shows total accumulation from each system throughout the period selected.
GFS All Snow Let It Go thru Model Range
This map shows each system thru model range of the GFS (click/animate)
Colorado, Utah
A small clipper system will be swinging thru Colorado Tomorrow morning thru 2 am. Not much expected 1-3 inches for the northern mountains and divide–High side 3-6. High pressure will move in briefly before the next storm system hits Saturday morning.
Storm Totals thru Saturday Midnight
Saturday thru Sunday a small system moves in beginning in the Pacific Northwest and take a SE track hitting Utah and Colorado Saturday morning. This is not a big storm, as we are in the weaker part of the pattern (NW Flow/Ridge of Death), but there should be 8-12 in spots.
The usual locations, as by now you understand the cycling pattern, the resorts that have been doing well will continue to do well. The exception to that rule is southern Utah and Colorado, where in early winter it looked like they would have good winters. Those systems that dropped feet of snow were cut off from the main jet stream and sat and spun enhancing snow totals. Those cut-off storms are “fool’s gold” and looking at the Cycle Chart below from yesterday’s discussion, they are listed in the pink shaded boxes. I list those storms that way to remind me not to count that data. Those storms may return in the spring, so there is hope.
Pattern Discussion (from yesterday)
This is a bird’s eye view of the cycling pattern as recorded by snowfall. We are in cycle 3 of this year’s pattern and we are coming up on one of the holes in the pattern. When you look at the upper third of the chart, those numbers are back in October and September so there isn’t much precipitation data because the jet stream had not dropped at that point. What we do at this point of the pattern is project each cycle based on the storms that were present on the 500 mb and surface charts, then project where they will be in future cycles.
The red box inside the blue box gave us a clue in the second cycle that there might be storms that will “fill in the hole” in the next cycle, and that is exactly what we did. Three to four years ago we would have missed these storms.
It is still a gamble, because these storms were weak last cycle and appear to be weak to moderate on the GFS presently, but this extends the Active Part of the Pattern, even though we are in that Northwest Flow pattern now. What will happen next cycle? That is what we are working on now.
Back tracking a little bit, looking at the second third the storms have also filled in a little more–the MJO helped a little but was basically neutral most of the time. This gives us valuable data to improve our storm forecasting in the upcoming cycle. This is why we don’t go out too far on the Predictions chart, because we don’t want to miss something–note, we can project, though, based on the data at the time all the way out to summer. 
Free Snow Concierge–Remember, the Long-Range Forecast Predictions can be projected out for the rest of the season. We don’t release them because we like to “fine tune” the dates of storms; especially because we dial in the forecast by just 1 day’s tolerance. You can email me at Mike@FutureSnow.co anytime to take advantage of this free service. We can tell you when and where to go and give you a personalized forecast for your trip.
Snow Totals over the last 10 Days
Upcoming Storms
Scattered snow showers today in Colorado as the system moves out. There is a clipper system moving thru on Wednesday night and Thursday that will add to the totals, that is one of the systems we talked about above.
Friday thru Sunday
Then a bigger system hits the Pacific Northwest Friday dropping decent numbers in the northern Cascades with minor amounts in the southern ranges. That system will move southeast hitting Utah on time on the 11th, and Colorado the 11/12th. This storm closes out the 12/10 predictions with good totals for all mountains in Utah and Colorado in the 4-8 range with the high side of 8-16.
New to FutureSnow?
If you are new to FutureSnow check out this page using the link in purple. It will help to explain some of the terminology you will be reading on our blog, along with our methodology using the Cycling Weather Pattern. Thanks for joining our Team!
Thank you for reading the blog and as always if you have any questions, please email me at Mike@FutureSnow.co.
