Coming off a few weeks of beautiful but dry indian summer in Marble… finally got some low pressure systems stacked up and spinning through. Today, drizzling rain at WildSnow Field HQ, with snowline predicted to stay high at around 11,000 feet over coming days.

We are expecting a “normal” winter with more El Nino moisture south of us in the San Juans, based on predictions from weather consultants. But those guys have little better than around 50/50 odds of their predictions coming true this far out, so you never know.

Main thing here in Marble is simply this: If we get an “average” winter we receive enough moisture for a snowpack that bridges early and develops little depth hoar. Tricky part, even if the winter has average moisture, is if the snowline stays high into November we sometimes receive very little snow below the summit of Marble Peak, and if that situation involves skipping the snow accumulation from a few larger early storms, we can be playing snowpack catchup till spring corn season.

So watch the weather and hope by the end of October into November we get cold-moist storms that drop plentiful snow down to around 9,000 feet (level of the Quarry Road). That’s the ideal situation, IF regular storms continue marching through to build the snowpack before the November “ground layers” turn to sugar snow. Always interesting to watch, if not agonizing.