Aspen on track to easily exceed last year’s snow total
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Spring is right around the corner, but skiers and riders working toward their 100-day pin still have plenty of time — and snow — to get their days in.
Last weekend’s storm left nearly two feet of fresh powder on the mountains, with the biggest powder day happening Saturday.
According to the National Weather Service, Tuesday has the best chance for some sun during the day and then rain and/or snow showers may fall at night. Wednesday will be wet and snowy, with rain and snow showers possible during the day and night. Thursday shows the best chance for snow across all four mountains.
An OpenSnow forecast shows that in the next one to five days, Aspen Highlands will get 10 inches of fresh snow, Aspen Mountain will get eight inches, Snowmass will get nine inches and Buttermilk will get five.
“This storm will be similar to the last storm with a lot of moisture, initially warm air and a high rain/snow line, and then we’ll see an extended period of snow showers and colder temperatures,” OpenSnow founding meteorologist Joel Gratz wrote in his Daily Snow forecast.
Spring snows in the past
An Aspen Snowfall Data report from the city of Aspen Water Department shows 140.75 inches of snow has fallen so far in the 2022-23 season. In the 2021-22 season, Aspen received a total of 185.41 inches of snow from September 2021 through June 2022.
At this time last year, Aspen had received 119.5 inches of snow in total, meaning the current season has already received about 20 more inches of snow than at this point last year. This report does not include data from March, so the last storm that dumped nearly two feet of snow on some of the mountains has yet to be counted.
It is difficult to predict whether snow will continue falling into April, and the past few Aprils show no clear pattern. In April 2019, Aspen received 5.9 inches of snow. In April 2020, Aspen measured nearly five times that amount with 24.8 inches of snow. 2021 saw 13.5 inches of snow in April, and last year saw 22.1.
According to the report, the record for snowfall in April was set in 2011 at 55.9 inches of snow, though the average from 1935 through 2022 is just 16.55 inches for the month of April.
To reach Audrey Ryan, email her at aryan@aspentimes.com.
