Colorado has a chance for some significant widespread snow this week – but there’s a big ‘if’ involved.

According to mapping released by the National Weather Service on January 6, the entire state can expect at least a little bit of snow through the morning of January 9. The amount of snow each spot gets, however, could vary wildly depending on which forecasted scenario comes to fruition.

In the most likely ‘expected’ snowfall scenario, many of the state’s tallest peaks get about six to 12 inches of snow with exception of Pikes Peak, the Sangre de Cristos, and much of the San Juans, which are expected to get less. Outside of these harder hit higher elevation areas, the rest of the state can expect snow between one and four inches, with Denver expected to get about an inch.

If the high-end snowfall scenario holds true, however, widespread totals of six to 12 inches of snow can be expected through Friday morning, including across much of the Denver metro area. This scenario would also mean about nine inches of snow along I-70 in the area of the Eisenhower-Johnson tunnels. Also worth noting is that in this scenario, southwest Colorado gets hit significantly harder, getting up to a foot of snow. Totals in this scenario top out in the 12 to 18-inch range in a few select areas, but most of the impacts would likely be seen in more populated areas getting six to eight inches.

Both of these snowfall scenarios can be seen on the mapped projections below, starting with the more likely ‘expected’ snowfall scenario (80% chance) and followed by the high-end snowfall scenario (10% chance):

While Colorado is creating a small gap between the current snowpack and the all-time low, the state is still at about 64 percent of what’s typical for the date as of January 6. This puts it in the 5th percentile – currently lower for the date than all but two years since records started in 1987 (2000 and 2018). That said, snowpack is approaching that of years of 1990, 1999, 2013, and 2024. Stay tuned to see if the next round of snow is enough to bump snowpack over any of those years.

Find additional forecasting information on the National Weather Service website.

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