YESTERDAY: "A low pressure system is approaching, with mostly sunny skies and cold temperatures today, clouding up with light to moderate snow this evening and overnight mainly, favoring southwest Colorado (moderate, 5 to 9" of snow), and to some extent Aspen-Snowmass, less so for Vail and eastward/ northward, under a southwest flow aloft, and cross-mountain, as low pressure is centered mainly to the southwest."

TODAY we see this southerly tracking low get pulled in toward Colorado, as a more northern system dives in toward Colorado, with increased forcing and moisture being pulled in across the region. This is looking like a good storm for southwest Colorado, with a strong southwesterly cross-mountain flow, and low centered across the southern CO border, and moisture looks decent. Moderate+ snow totals are expected for Aspen, with a favorable cross-mountain wind flow, good dynamics, and cold air.

On Tuesday the system moving through from the northwest continues to deliver snow through the morning and afternoon, lighter for Aspen but heavier for Vail and east/ north, though moisture at the point winds turn west/ northwest and favorable, decreases, which is usually the case (source regions for the air out of the west/ northwest are usually limited on moisture, as compared to from out of the warmer and higher dew point temperature (usually) west/ southwest).

Wednesday looks like it may be an in between day, with approaching low pressure, and more sunshine. Clouds increase overnight...

Thursday and Friday we have another low pressure system affecting the area, with moderate snow totals possible for Aspen, and heavy for southwest Colorado, which will be favored again.

The coming weekend we see another storm system moving through, with more snow, likely significant. CM

LONGER RANGE: Early March will be mostly spent under high pressure ridging and mostly sunny skies, no snow for the most part except for a few dustings of a trace to a few inches here and there as low pressure dives into the Great lakes and eastern US, brushing Colorado. Around the 10th-15th of March (For Colorado), we move back into an unsettled pattern with regular snowfalls again. 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