12/21/21 Tuesday 1:35 pm
The reason I had been waiting to take travel questions is that things change the closer the storm gets. This morning’s new model runs are trending towards a later start on Thursday. If you are looking forward to seeing some snow in the lower elevations, this may work out better for you.
Traveling over the passes on Friday, assuming they are open, will be a very difficult task. If you had planned to do that, you may want to formulate an alternate plan in case these models are correct. There may even be travel problems on Friday in the lower elevations.
There is another change. The models are all showing a second storm in the cycle coming in on Saturday night through Sunday. There should be colder air in place so this may be all snow at all elevations. This would still leave a window during the day on Saturday, but things could get rough again Saturday night through Sunday late afternoon. The Euro and Canadian are showing a bigger storm from Saturday to Sunday than the GFS.
The 10-day period beginning Thursday could rival some of those storm cycles we experienced in the 2007, 2008, and 2009 winters.
As I said things can change, so if you emailed me about Sunday earlier and I said everything was going to be fine, make sure you continue to follow for the most recent developments. On Saturday, I will go into more depth for people trying to return to the area on Sunday.
Here are the latest model runs. I am going to continue to show the totals through Sunday evening. The Winter Storm Watches that will be coming out may not include the totals through Sunday evening, they may only go to Saturday morning. So don’t be surprised if they are a little lower with their forecasts. They will probably hold off on issuing anything for the mid and lower elevations until Thursday night or Friday morning.
Canadian–Thursday through Sunday night.
GFS–Thursday through Sunday night. Whatever that little setback that the GFS had in its previous run, it is over it now.
Euro–Thursday through Sunday night.
German–Thursday through Sunday night.
NBM–This is the National Weather Service’s blended model. These are extremely high totals for one of their in-house products. This too is Thursday through Sunday night.
To recap, Friday is a bad travel day and night. Saturday night and Sunday morning could be impacted. There is a chance there could be periodic closures on all of the passes for hazardous conditions and/or avalanche mitigation Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
This afternoon, I will do another update after the forecast discussion comes out. It should be before 5 pm. Thanks for following and supporting the site!
Keep the good news coming!! This is awesome!