When it comes to winter, there are a few things synonymous with Colorado: blue skies, light snow and avalanches.
Within our beloved Colorado mountain ranges, an interesting concoction of elevation, temperature, wind and snowfall combine with an abundance of clear, sunny days to form conditions unlike anywhere else in the mountain west. The weather patterns that give us bluebird, Champagne powder days also give us the most avalanche-prone snowpack in the country.
Among the three primary snowpack zones — maritime, intermountain and continental — Colorado falls into the continental zone. We’re landlocked on the Continental Divide, far away from any large bodies of water, so our air is bone dry and our precipitation totals are less than those of coastal climates. Our mountains soar to high elevations where the mercury plummets in winter, and overall temperatures fluctuate more dramatically than lower elevation areas.
