Something has been missing from Colorado’s mountains this winter: snow.
Across the Mountain West, snowpack is at historic lows. Which raises big concerns about water supplies and wildfire risk heading into the spring and summer. But that could be about to change.
After months of below-average snowfall, new storms this weekend and going into next week could finally give the state’s snowpack — and its ski resorts — a much-needed boost.
“It's been a low snow year, but we have snowflakes falling right now and just picked up about three inches and more coming next week, so we're excited for that,” Chief Operating Officer of Vail Mountain, Beth Howard, told CPR News.
Like other ski resorts around the state, Howard says Vail Mountain has had to get creative with the lack of natural snow falling from the sky. That’s meant opening different runs and relying more on snowmaking to keep the mountain open.
So she’s hoping the incoming storms bring skiers and winter sports enthusiasts back to the slopes.
The central mountains — including Vail — could see accumulations up to 8 inches over the weekend. Northern mountains, including the Park Range and Rabbit Ears, could see amounts up to 20 inches at highest elevations.
Joel Gratz, meteorologist and founder of OpenSnow, said one round of storms can help — but it likely won’t be enough to make up for the season-long deficit.
“It’s unlikely that this will bring us back to normal,” Gratz said. “Now, if this pattern can continue for three weeks or four weeks, we might be able to pull off the miracle. But yes, this will be a relief.”
But for many of Colorado’s youngest residents, the lack of snow is hard to understand.
Melody Weber, a 5th grader who lives in Vail, says her family’s annual Christmas tree hike was different this year. Normally, she gets to wear snowshoes and trek through deep, fluffy snow. This year? Muddy grass.
“We can’t ski without snow. We can’t sled without snow,” Weber said. “Whenever it does snow, everybody comes and goes into the mountains … We have had some good snowstorms, but then it just melted away the day after.”
For many Colorado kids, like Weber, snow means skiing, sledding, and building snow forts. But for forecasters and backcountry travelers, it also comes with serious risks.
With several feet of snow expected in parts of the high country this weekend and into next week, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center warns that new snow on top of weak layers in the existing snowpack will make slopes more unstable — increasing the chance of both natural and human‑triggered avalanches.
“We historically see a big uptick in avalanche danger over President’s Day weekend,” said Theresa Graven, spokesperson for the Center. “Holiday weekends bring more people into the backcountry, so we see an uptick in human-triggered avalanche accidents.”
The Center recommends that anyone heading into the backcountry check the latest avalanche forecasts, carry proper safety equipment, and exercise caution on slopes with fresh snow.
