Gearing Up For The Second Storm

12/7/21 Tuesday 4:30 am

Snow is currently falling mostly over the passes and resorts as of 3:00 am. There do appear to be some flurries or light snow in some of the mid-elevation areas. The snow is intensifying as the system moves south. But, I think it has just a few hours left before dry air works into the mix.

The models continue to show a major system that will start to affect the area by Thursday. However, we will likely see some precipitation later in the day on Wednesday.

I have gotten a number of questions about converting the liquid-equivalent maps to snow. It will be probably 30 to 36 hours before I will be confident enough in the model runs to do that.

The models continue to speed up the storm. The arrival of the colder air favors a delay in the onset of precipitation. This could affect the type of precipitation that falls during the first 1/3 of the storm below 7,200 feet. The bulk of the precipitation will fall as snow, but if the models continue trending in this direction there may be some rain in the lower elevations before changing to snow. The colder air that follows could lead to some icy conditions in the lower elevations. There is a lot on the table right now. I consider it a happy problem!

There was no Winter Storm Watch talk from the NWS this morning. I imagine they will sort things out today. They will continue to monitor the fluctuations in the models, and we may see some blanket Special Weather Statement later today or tomorrow morning.

In the last 12 hours, the models have backed off some of those higher totals slightly. They will probably continue to fluctuate but overall, they still look pretty impressive. I will be very surprised if Wolf Creek ends up with less than 3 feet of snow!

Here are the latest model runs.

Latest GFS second storm totals