COLORADO, USA — There was a wintery scene on Monday morning at Snowbird Resort in Utah. Several inches of snow dusted the higher slopes and had to get shoveled off the Mineral Basin ski lift.
There was even some snow on the highway on Bald Mountain Pass to the east of Salt Lake City.
The same storm system brought Mount Hood the first snow of the season to Oregon a few days earlier.
The storm moved into Colorado on Monday afternoon, bringing severe weather to parts of the western slope along with several strong non-thunderstorm wind gusts including a 107-mph gust on Loveland Pass that was measured by a Colorado Department of Transportation weather station.
The temperatures above 12,000 feet are expected to drop down to 35 degrees or lower on Tuesday morning, so there will be a chance for a few peaks to get that first snow of the season if there is still enough moisture left in the storm at that time.
The probability is not high, but if the snow doesn't show on Tuesday, the computer forecast models are showing two more possibilities in the next two weeks. The first dusting of the season usually happens in the Colorado mountains in the first week of September.
The first dusting of the season has come a little earlier in the last two years. Snow was spotted in the Mosquito Range near Alma on Aug. 17 last year. And in 2021, the first snow hit Summit County on Aug. 20.
In 2020, the first dusting was spotted in Breckenridge on Sep. 1. And it was a little later in 2019, on Berthoud Pass on Sep. 12.
That first dusting of the season does build excitement for the coming winter, but there’s no real connection to how big the snow season will end up.
Another thing that seems to be helping build winter excitement is the development of an El Niño weather pattern. The last El Niño in Colorado produced big snow in 2018-2019, highlighted by a historic avalanche cycle in March and April.
But overall, El Niños have not been consistent in Colorado, with mixed results. The 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 El Niños brought below-average snowpack to our state.
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