YOUR AD HERE »

Pow daze: Winter Park Resort tallies 21 inch snowfall over 24 hours

A skier disappears into the deep powder at Winter Park Resort on Thursday morning after the resort received 21 inches of new snow over the preceding 24 hours.
Courtesy Winter Park Resort / Carl Frey

It was a wild Wednesday in Colorado this week as a second “bomb cyclone” moved across the High Country and eastern plains dumping multiple inches of snow and depositing over 20 inches at Winter Park Resort.

Thursday morning officials from Winter Park Resort reported that 21 inches of snow had fallen at the ski area in the previous 24 hours with 14 of those 24 inches falling overnight. Steve Hurlbert, spokesman for Winter Park Resort, stated the snowfall over the past day represents the largest one-day accumulation Winter Park has seen this season.

The early April powder day brings the resort’s total snowfall this season to 302 inches, from a total of 70 snowfall days, according to ski resort snowfall data aggregation website On The Snow. Prior to this week Winter Park Resort saw its largest  one-day accumulation total on March 14 when the resort received 16 inches.



The summit snowpack base at Winter Park is holding strong despite warm spring temperatures that have climbed into the 50s multiple times in the past few weeks. As of Thursday morning the summit based was tallied at 102 inches while the base area snowpack remained strong as well at 98 inches.

Open Snow, another popular resort snowfall data aggregation website, estimated Winter Park Resort’s snowpack at 116 percent of historic averages as of April 11.



All around Grand County local ski areas experienced varying amounts of snowfall. Steamboat Springs ski area, northwest of Middle Park, was reporting nine inches in the past 24 hours on Thursday though no overnight snowfall. Copper Mountain, just west of Frisco, saw six inches of snowfall overnight and 10 in the previous 24 hours.

Things were paltry for Keystone, which reported no new snow in the past 24 hours as of Thursday morning. Closer to the Continental Divide Arapaho Basin received six inches in the previous 24 hours while Loveland tallied eight. The situation was slightly better for Eldora, which reported 10 inches of snowfall in the past 24 hours as of Thursday morning.

Thursday morning the US Department of Agriculture’s SNOTEL weather data gathering site near Berthoud Pass had tallied 13 inches of newly accumulated over the previous 24-hours. The National Weather Service is forecasting continued light snow showers for Winter Park on Thursday with a 50 percent chance of snow showers on Friday and a 40 percent chance for snow showers on Saturday. Forecasters from the National Weather Service are predicting a 60 percent chance for overnight snowfall from Friday into Saturday calling snow showers, “likely.”


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

The Sky-Hi News strives to deliver powerful stories that spark emotion and focus on the place we live.

Over the past year, contributions from readers like you helped to fund some of our most important reporting, including coverage of the East Troublesome Fire.

If you value local journalism, consider making a contribution to our newsroom in support of the work we do.