Three more winter storms heading into Colorado

Skiing out the Stone Creek gate at the bottom of Rose Bowl in Beaver Creek (David O. Williams).

Editor’s note: The first of three storm systems hit right on schedule Thursday night, depositing four inches of new snow at Beaver Creek and three new at Vail as of the 5:30 a.m., Friday snow report, and snow is still falling steadily as of 6 a.m. Friday.

There was something strange up in the sky this week above the Vail Valley, something rarely seen since late November — a yellow, blindingly bright orb called the sun. After weeks of clouds and snow, it was a little strange to dig out and bask in its heat, but don’t worry, the brief break won’t last long.

Forecasters are telling us winter weather heads back in Thursday night and will last through next week, with multiple quality powder days expected at Vail and Beaver Creek.

“Following dry weather on Thursday, snow will fall on Thursday night, with a break on Friday, and another round of snow on Saturday into Sunday,” Opensnow.com meteorologist Joel Gratz wrote on Thursday.

“Then after a short break on Sunday, another round of snow will fall on Monday and Tuesday. Accumulations could range from 12-24 inches in the northern mountains [that’s us] to 25-50 inches in the southern mountains. This should be a good storm cycle with a few powder days!”

Let’s hope for colder temperatures and less of the wet, warm stuff we received in December and January. While great for the snow pack and reservoir levels, storms that start as rain at lower elevations are very atypical for Colorado this time of year and led to a lot of the avalanche danger we’ve seen in recent weeks.

While a few days of sunshine has been nice in terms of stabilizing the snow pack, more wet, heavy snow that we typically see in the late springtime could quickly jack the avy danger right back up in the back country.

As always, exercise extreme caution going out of bounds.