YESTERDAY: "We expect more sunshine as low pressure washes out and loses its distinction on the weather map, for drier conditions and a milder day after a colder morning. By overnight we expect increased clouds and some snow showers developing from out of the southwest, as a low pressure system sends moisture up from the desert southwest, and some accumulating snow."

TODAY: and Wednesday we expect increased moisture, instability, and some jet stream dynamics all favoring the southwest portion of Colorado, but also including Aspen, for some heavy accumulations expected across the San Juan Mountains (Silverton, Telluride, Wolf Creek), moderate snow totals for Aspen-Snowmass, and light to moderate for Vail and east/ north, as a low offshore of California spins off some upper-level weather disturbances that move through the region.

Thursday and Friday we expect the offshore low to move through Colorado, with significant snowfall for all areas, favoring, generally, southwest and west facing slopes Thursday, then northern resorts (I-70 resorts Vail and east, and north/ divide) on Friday, heavy snow and powder day totals are expected. 

LONGER RANGE: Saturday and Sunday we expect high pressure ridging to build in all across the western US. Monday and Tuesday we expect an unsettled northwest flow across Colorado and extreme northern Utah, for some light to moderate snowfall to Aspen-Snowmass, and more moderate snow (and even powder days) for places along the divide like Winter Park, Loveland, and Arapahoe Basin favored, and still moderate+ snowfall possible to Breckenridge/ Keystone, Copper Mountain and Vail. This period of colder and snowy weather starts to lose its grip as we move through next week (still on track, week of the 21st-25th of January). After this, expect high pressure ridging and a snow down-time from then and through early February, though we do not expect more than 3-5 days to pass without at least a "slope-freshener" of a system to move through, therefore great conditions continue. Storms start to become more frequent again after early February. CM

It has been a while since we updated this outlook. When paying full attention to any area we forecast for, which I have been watching weather patterns for (the western US also) since the 1970's, I put my forecasts of weather events/ timing/ snow totals up against any, especially in the long range. We gained quite a reputation for our Tahoe and Utah forecasts over a span of almost 15 years, gaining the attention of TV stations who used the forecasts with no mention of source, a movie financier who wanted me to be a part of a "think tank" group of professionals, radio stations, etc. Even major growers/ ag interests were using these free forecasts (for the longer range accuracy of weather event timing and significance), as an accurate long range forecaster is the equivalent of a "fortune teller", as told to me by the movie financier. There are competitors who charge for their info, and we do not, even though our information is a paid service in other formats we continue to deliver to agriculture customers to this day (Circa 1995). As I stated, I put my forecasts up against anyone else's in the area.

We gave out over $50,000 in SWAG (lodging, tickets, passes, gear, even Nativa Naturals food) from 2009-2011, stuff we couldn't even afford to buy ourselves, to many people from SFO and SAC, TVL area. If you check my bio you will see my story, there is a LOT more to it than what I am typing here.

I have received many emails due to the missing updates. The answer is, we have not had any support from advertisers, resorts, anyone in this region since around 2013. I continued on with the forecasting hoping for some support in the form of advertising or sponsorship, but it didn't happen, and I do not know anyone else who works for free.

That said, I would like to get these forecast outlooks going again-->

I never charged the site user for this service. The skier/ snowboarder has enough to pay for with fuel, lift tickets and passes, gear, life, etc., and I feel it is a service that should be provided by the host, the resort, to its visitors, even if in the form of advertising on the site. I have the same awesome, nice traffic as the rest of the snow sports niche sites, but am not going to run Google ads so they can charge $20/ cpm and give us less than a dollar cpm.

That said... I watch Colorado as that is where the business is for me. Recently, Bogus Basin joined the client list and now we work up a complete custom forecast for them as well, with a long range outlook. I will be drawing from that already completed work to deliver you a broad-brush longer range outlook for the western US, for now. I hope it is useful for you:

LONGER RANGE: The 9th-10th of January another low pressure system moves in with good potential snowfall, significant snow for the west coast mainly, less as we move inland, southern areas favored like southwest US areas,The 11-12th (roughly) and then the 13th-20th of January, we expect unsettled conditions to continue dominating the western US (had this forecast for over a month, early Dec forecast for this mid-late Jan time frame), and we expect a prominent moisture tap from the tropics, as El Nino starts to show itself more... So basically, between the 9th and 20th, we expect many more storms to move through with snow for most western US resort areas, down south to including Southern California and even favoring the southwest US as a more southerly track seems more likely... This unsettled period should last into around the 18th-20th of January, then in the last part of Jan and early February (through the 8th of Feb maybe), we start off with a snow down time under more dominant high pressure ridging. More to come. CM