Forecasters agree: The storm track is changing

Since we are diehard skiers, nothing excites us more at the San Juan Ski Company, Colorado’s largest snowcat skiing operation, than skiing powder.  If you are like us, you have been spending far too much time online following the weather and keeping track of the next storm (and, like us, are sick and tired of skiing hardpack and junk!)

Warm temps and weird jet streams have contributed to scant snowfall throughout most of the western states.  While the San Juans have one of the deeper snowpacks in Colorado, the SJSC hasn’t run snowcat trips since Dec. 31^th when high winds blasted alpine terrain and warm temps melted lower elevation cat roads.  Since then, we haven’t picked up any measureable precipitation in our catski terrain.

However, the storm track appears to be changing…

Forecasters agree that the dominant ridge of high pressure is shifting and may signal an end to the blocking pattern that has pushed recent storms away from Colorado. Snow is predicted in the San Juans late Sunday and a second storm is predicted out of the northwest Monday morning. Local forecasters call for an unsettled northwest flow developing by middle of next week. One national forecaster even predicted a total flip from the current weather pattern.

SJSC one of the only snowcat operations in the U.S. to open in December. However…

High Winds and Warm Temps Ruin Powder; SJSC Closes Till Snow Falls

By Carrie Rule

Our first trip of the year was December 24. We were gifted with great powder skiing.

As a young ski bum in Montana, dry spells during winter always led to adventure. I’d head north to Canada and follow the storms – getting face shots at Whitewater, Fernie and Red Mountain, hopping on helicopters at standby rates, or flying into BC backcountry huts for a week of power skinning and epic powder turns on glaciers. 

Other drought years took me to Colorado, Utah, California and even the Alps. 

Twenty years later, it’s not so easy for me to follow storms across North America. And fortunately, I don’t have to travel far to find powder, since skiing untracked lines (even weeks after the last storm) is just a snowcat ride away – until this week.

The Southern San Juans started the season with south tracking storms stacked one after another. By the middle of December, our area had one of the deepest snowpacks in the West. Since then, winds have blasted our snowcat terrain (even below tree line), warm temps have melted and consolidated the snowpack (as well as creating a killer crust), and no snow has fallen in almost three weeks. Despite this, the Southern San Juans still have one of the deeper snowpacks in Colorado.

Because of less-than-ideal ski conditions, we are not running any snowcat trips until it snows.