One of the busiest ski weekends is here and there'll be lots of new snow to play in, but there could also be travel issues getting to and from the slopes.

A quick overview of what we are talking about here is a series of waves to move through, each bringing periods of heavy snowfall. Here is the alert map showing the hazardous weather areas to end the week.

Those alerts are the combination of heavy snow and wind. We can get more specific with just travel conditions and the roadway impact here:

So, clearly, those in the high country will need to plan on some travel issues, but the snow will be fun to play in. Here is the snowfall forecast through early Sunday morning.

You may look at that map and notice there is some snowfall in the forecast for the metro areas. Well, yes we do have chances to see snow but the setup for the next several days really does favor mountain snow and just a bit left over for the Front Range and Plains. The Palmer Divide and the Cheyenne Ridge have the higher odds of getting a couple/few inches but those are on the high-end of the probabilities.

Here's a timeline for showers for Denver, which shows two waves of chances; the first is Friday/Saturday and the second is Monday/Tuesday. This post is primarily focused on the first with the alerts, travel impact, and snowfall totals above.

Let me throw in temperatures for the week at this point, too. Friday and Monday are potentially in the 50s with 30s and 40s for Saturday and Sunday.

The initial showers late Friday could be some rain before changing to snow which may increase the risk of some icing on the roads and increasing the driver impact but again the odds are less than convincing on that in data through Thursday morning.

We can get more specific on the next 36 hours for both Denver and Colorado Springs. We have quite a warm-up for Friday (50s), setting the stage for some initial rainfall if the showers materialize, before temperatures cool down for the weekend.

Denver:

Colorado Springs:

To summarize, the mountains will get lots of snowfall headed into the holiday weekend - a busy one for ski areas and drivers to and from will have some weather issues to deal with. For the metro areas, Friday's warmth cools into the weekend when we could see some showers floating around. A few of us may see some accumulation but the odds are not screaming heavy impact on the metro area at this time.

We will be back with more information on this first wave if needed, but certainly on wave #2 arriving Monday.