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When it comes to ski conditions across most of Colorado for Thanksgiving, this may be a good weekend to watch football, don hiking boots to cut down a Christmas tree, or figure out creative uses for turkey leftovers.
Colorado’s snowpack statewide is at 54% of average as of Wednesday. Only Beaver Creek, Crested Butte, Powderhorn and the Aspen area mountains are at or near average snowpack for this time of year. Nearly every area that is open for skiing is offering 6% of its skiable terrain or less. The only exception is Eldora, which is reporting 15% of its terrain in operation.
There is a storm due this weekend, according to the OpenSnow forecasting and reporting service, one that could deliver a foot or two to Purgatory and Wolf Creek, but elsewhere it may be only good for three to eight inches. Snow is expected to begin falling Thursday night in some locations and continue through Saturday afternoon, according to OpenSnow’s Joel Gratz.
“Some eastern areas will see snow begin on Thursday night, while most locations will see snow from Friday through Saturday,” Gratz wrote in Wednesday’s forecast. “I think most locations should keep expectations on the low side with 3-6 inches as a reasonable average, though areas east of the divide, some spots in the west-central mountains, and many areas of the southern mountains will see the highest snow totals with snowflakes flying through sometime on Saturday. This storm will not raise the statewide snowpack up to average, but it will deepen the base across the state, and parts of the southern mountains could rocket from nearly dry to a decent snowpack by the end of the storm.”
Gratz doesn’t anticipate another storm until next weekend at the earliest, but temperatures will be cool next week, which would help maintain what negligible snow there is on the ground and enable ongoing snowmaking operations.
Here’s a list of select ski areas with the percentage of open terrain they reported on Wednesday, according to figures provided by Colorado Ski Country USA and Vail Resorts:
Arapahoe Basin, 2%; Copper Mountain, 4%; Eldora, 15%; Loveland, 3%; Purgatory, 2%; Steamboat, 6%; Winter Park, 4%; Vail, 1%; Keystone, 6%; Breckenridge, 5%; Beaver Creek, 2%. Crested Butte, which opened on Wednesday, is not reporting the percentage of terrain it has open, but it is operating only six of 165 trails. Beaver Creek also opened on Wednesday.
“The longer-range forecasts are slowly trending toward a stormier outlook for the western U.S.,” Gratz wrote, “so I am cautiously optimistic that we’ll see a storm (or two or three) during the first half of December, and maybe with some luck, one or two of these storms will produce significant snow and help increase available terrain across the state.”
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