Talked to a buddy in Winter Park today, he saw over a foot of snow on Berthoud Pass and heard reports of upwards of 2 ft on higher terrrian above treeline on the divide. SOunded like the snowies in wyo and the rabbit ear range also got hit hard. Wet heavy snow is what was being reported. Anyone hear from the summit /vail and southern CO area? Lets hope this continues and there can be some good early season snow out west.
Good snow for CO divide area
- Thread starter TRam
- Start date
EMSC
Well-known member
TRam":eybly559 said:
Possible, but sounds maybe a bit high on your high end. I heard mostly 6-10" amounts around the divide and if you look at web cams the lower parts of resorts it didn't really stick or already melted. Add in a 3-4day warm up coming through this weekend and not a lot will be left. That said, a bigger storm is forecast next mon/tues with colder temps.
From my experinece in winter park last spring from mid march thru july, it is really hard to forecast and report snow on the divide adjacnt to winter park and mary jane. There isnt any reilable snotel info that I could find, after a few tripsd up the waterboard road with some local snowboarders I realized they get alot more snow sometimes then other closeby areas get. Example of the late april storm that dumped over 2 ft on the closed resort dropped over 5ft on the divide. My info was from some of the sledneck guys from kremmling. That being said it will warm up and propably melt a good deal of this snow. Hopefully this next storm hits hard.
The Continental Divide has a local microclimate that often does not correlate well to the resorts farther west. It has an advantage when moisture can be sucked up from the Great Plains. This is most conspicuous in spring and bumps up April/May snowfall quite a bit relative to the places farther west. There could be a smaller but similar effect in the autumn. It doesn't mean much for skiing because Colorado's snow is so light that rarely will it build a meaningful natural base for skiing until the weather stays cold consistently.
The areas ON the Continental Divide, Loveland and A-Basin, are overdue for a good snow year. Both of them have been below average or worse the past 7 seasons. The monster storm of March 2003 marks their last big year.
The areas ON the Continental Divide, Loveland and A-Basin, are overdue for a good snow year. Both of them have been below average or worse the past 7 seasons. The monster storm of March 2003 marks their last big year.