Winter storm rolls through Aspen and Snowmass

It began dumping snow in Aspen on Sunday afternoon, keeping up a recent streak of powdery days in the area.

"The gondola cabins are starting to cake up, ohhhhhh yeah!" the Aspen Skiing Company crowed.

One local forecast predicted between 7 to 11 inches "up high" on the ski slopes, but this storm is a "tricky" one, said another who guessed the accumulations may be a few inches lower. What is clear, however, is that snow has been falling and a powder day is ahead.

The new snow will fall on top of nearly a foot of fresh snow that’s fallen since Wednesday of last week. Vail has finally topped 150 inches of cumulative snowfall this season, and all 31 lifts are now operating.

Opensnow.com is calling for 1-2 inches of snow this afternoon, 4-6 tonight and another 1-3 Monday morning at Vail, Beaver Creek and all of the Aspen-area mountains. Then another 1-2 inches are in the forecast for Tuesday, with 3-5 Tuesday night and another 1-2 Wednesday morning.

After that, things dry out Wednesday afternoon through Saturday, with another round of storms starting Sunday (just in time for President’s Day).

Pent-up powder aggression had snow riders out en masse on Saturday, with cars lining the frontage roads in Vail for only the third time this season. The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) cancelled its Rolling Speed Harmonization program today during peak traffic hours between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The state highway agency scrapped the pace cars because the volume of traffic was expected to be too high for the program to be effective.

Traffic snarls won’t be an issue during the upcoming weekday powder storms, but backcountry snow riding could be a bit problematic.

“Recent reports are mentioning that the snowpack is getting noisy again,” Scott Toepfer of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center wrote this morning. “Rumbling collapses, cracking up to 200 feet across, and reactive pit tests. Time to raise the avalanche antennas again. It is not taking much new snow to create a reactive snowpack.”

The avalanche danger was rated as considerable in both the Aspen and Vail/Summit County areas this morning.

River Name / Location	Stream flow, ft3/s	Gage height ft
Gore Creek
At Upper Station, Near I-70 Twin Bridges	n/a	4 ft
Booth Creek	n/a	4 ft
Abv Red Sandstone Creek At Vail	177	6 ft
At Mouth Near Minturn	217	7 ft
Beaver Creek
At Avon	21	2 ft
Lake Creek
Near Edwards	80	1 ft
Cross Creek
Near Minturn	104	4 ft
Homestake Creek
At Gold Park	121	5 ft
Eagle River
East Fork Eagle River Near Climax	n/a	2 ft
At Red Cliff	30	3 ft
Near Minturn	237	4 ft
Wastewater Treatment Plant At Avon	684	5 ft
Below Gypsum	853	5 ft
Colorado River
Near Kremmling	407	4 ft
Near Dotsero	1,630	3 ft
Below Glenwood Springs	3,180	5 ft
Near Cameo	3,760	6 ft
Below Grand Valley Div Nr Palisade	2,080	5 ft
Near Colorado-utah State Line	4,100	4 ft
Near Cisco, Ut	4,020	3 ft
At Lees Ferry, Az	12,000	9 ft
Near Grand Canyon, Az	12,300	9 ft
Yuma Main Canal Ww At Yuma, Az	1,020	10 ft
Roaring Fork River
Abv Lost Man Cr Near Aspen	n/a	n/a ft
Ab Difficult C Nr Aspen	52	1 ft
Near Aspen	80	1 ft
Near Emma	476	6 ft
At Glenwood Springs	1,180	3 ft
Hunter Creek
Near Aspen	56	2 ft
At Aspen	48	4 ft
Frying Pan River
Near Ruedi	113	2 ft
Crystal River
Abv Avalanche Crk, Near Redstone	540	2 ft
Arkansas River
Ef Arkansas R At Us Highway 24, Nr Leadville	47	3 ft
Near Leadville	86	5 ft
Below Empire Gulch Near Malta	159	4 ft
Below Granite	438	4 ft
Near Nathrop	460	4 ft
At Parkdale	469	3 ft