Spring warmth and a look at the Mon/Tue storm

03/01/25 6pm: Happy first day of meteorological spring! Certainly felt like spring along the front-range today with soccer games starting and gardening projects! Another warm day in Den/Bou with high temps between 66-70 degs with no clouds and basically no wind. Was perfect for Lily's first soccer game of the season this morning in Arvada (first pic below, but some other random team). Then with such a warm afternoon decided to get started on my garden beds, converting my one big garden area to 4 raised wooden beds (second image). Basically spent all day outside in a T-shirt, yea!

Anyway, a bit about the Mon/Tue storm...still looks like a fairly potent storm system but latest model trends show the main surface low setting up too far northeast on Tue morning, producing more west / northwest downslope flow and hence likely not much accumulating snow for Den/Bou, with most of the snow south and and east of Denver onto the Palmer Divide and east.

For Den/Bou some rain showers and weak thunderstorms likely from 4pm Mon through 12am Tue. Then rain changes to snow Tue am. Still some snow Tue morning for Denver, likely Trace-3" in spots, with best chances from Den south. Palmer Divide and parts of the foothills west/southwest of Denver can expect 2-6" of new snow. Little to no snow from Boulder north to Ft. Collins. It will also be windy over the front-range and plain on Tue, especially on the Palmer Divde and eastern plains (blizzard conditions in spots) northwest wind-gusts of 30-50mph.

On the flip-side with the main low tracking north and more west / northwest flow at the mid-levels, should be a good snow event for the north-central mountains, primarily from 5pm Mon to 5am Wed. Generally looks like 6-12" for the local ski areas with highest amounts expected near Berthoud/Jones passes, Winter Park, IPW, RMNP and Cameron Pass with secondarily highest amounts near Gore Range, Vail / Vail Pass (up to 15" in a few favored spots). It will be windy in the mountains as well on Tue with northwest wind-gusts of 30-60 mph, strongest east of the Cont. Divide.

Also looks like parts of southwest CO from the San Juans to Elks to Collegiate Range to Sangres should also get some decent snow as well, generally 5-10" at the ski areas down there by Wed am.

More snow likely for both the mountains and front-range from about 2pm Thu through 2pm Fri, I'll have more on that later.

Image 3 shows high-temps (max-T) today across CO. Some areas of the western slope near GJ/Fruita got into the mid-70s today with low 70s over parts of the front-range/eastern plains and 30s-50s in the mountains. Image 4 and 5 compare forecast total snowfall from now through 8pm Wed from very latest 18z ECMWF and GFS models, take snow amounts with grain of salt as there is still plenty of time for the models to change.

How was your Saturday?