Meteorological Fall began on Sunday (September 1st) which mean ski season is headed to the Colorado Rockies! Below is a list of projected start dates:

Resorts suggest planning out trips now, rather than later, to ensure lodging/rentals. It's a great way to save too, because prices tend to tick up over the next several months.

HOW IS THE SEASON LOOKING?

As far as the weather is concerned, our focus has been on the weak La Niña conditions developing off of the west coast of South America. With that in place, we tend to see the jet stream get displaced a bit further north during the winter months.

By shifting the jet stream to the north, we tend to see the southern mountains and southeast Colorado get the least snowfall during La Niña episodes. Still, the jet stream can sink into the northern Mountains and provide big totals for the resorts along and north of I-70.

The latest data from the Canadian Seasonal Model shows exactly this: Plenty of ridging is hanging tough over the southern US, with more prominent troughing over the Pacific Northwest. The way everything is shaking out timing-wise December to January is when we'll likely start to see ski conditions improving.

As for an official forecast, the northern mountains have a better chance of impressing this winter, while things could be more lackluster further south.

With any weather forecast though, mother nature will decide what she wants to do, and we'll be on top of it for you. The ultimate strength of this La Niña event is yet to be seen and we likely have another several weeks before the strength establishes itself. The strength can dictate the entire winter for us. For Denver, look for more of those faster hitting systems from the Northwest, and perhaps increased icing events this fall.

A quick peak at our weather right now... it'll remain hot to start the workweek, 90s, but then keep an eye on mid-week as a system will blow through, which will cool us down some and give us a bump in rain chances.

We will have more on the mid-week changes in our next post. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get new articles e-mailed to you!