From the Summit County Citizens Voice (Bob Berwyn):
For the season so far, precipitation is close to average, and winter hasn’t even started yet. And Friday night’s storm exceeded expectations, dropping a few inches (at least in Frisco) before 10 p.m.
Let’s recap. Beginning last August, the Climate Prediction Center forecast warmer-than-average temperatures for Colorado, along with equal chances for above- or below-normal precipitation. That outlook remained unchanged through the late summer and into autumn.
The biggest storms came before most of the ski areas opened. Since early November, the weather pattern has been a bit moribund, characterized by a pesky split-flow pattern that breaks approaching Pacific systems apart, with the biggest snowfall in the far south and far north.
Both Steamboat and Wolf Creek have benefited from this pattern, tallying the biggest snow totals so far, while the mountains in the central part of the state are, for the most part, near average.