Good skiing today, but better skiing tomorrow

Thursday, March 27, 2014

The Steamboat ski area reported 3” mid / 4” top this morning, and it was lightly snowing at report time. There was less than an inch of additional accumulations during the day with some sun on the hill, though it was snowing hard at 4 pm as another convective shower moved through. I currently see more showers upstream on the satellite loop, so we will continue to experience localized and heavy showers through the evening. They will probably wane near midnight, but then pick up again early in the morning as the second part of the storm moves over us, hopefully contributing to some Steamboat Magic between 5 am and 9 am tomorrow morning.

Interestingly, Steamboat recorded one of the lower snow totals this morning in Colorado; the storm produced localized areas of heavier snow last night, and we were unlucky enough to missed by some of these convective cells. Hopefully, we do better tonight!

There was some wind last night, and that evenly compacted the snow in most locations on the upper mountain, creating a smooth and carveable surface. The compacted snow had a fair bit of substance and it skied pleasantly soft on the upper half of the upper mountain. Though the snow became significantly heavier in the lower half, the old snow / new snow interface was not frozen, so it was still soft, albeit crunchy.

The snow was a bit deeper at the top of Morningside - probably around 6”. Christmas Tree Gully was fairly chewed by the time I got to it, though there was good skiing along the sides of the alleys through the trees. No Names skied quite good, especially when turning in the untracked powder.