Snow Will Finally Return To California and Colorado, but Patience Is Required

Skiers across the West have spent this winter refreshing webcams, squinting at brown trails, and settling for thin-cover tactics. The numbers match the feeling.

In California, the mountain snowpack sat around 59% of average in late January 2026, and the long-running Phillips Station reading near Lake Tahoe was roughly 46% of average.

In Colorado, SNOTEL basin indices on February 2, 2026, hovered in the 40s and 50s, with the Arkansas basin near 48% and the Upper Rio Grande near 51%. A thin early base and repeated warm and dry periods have kept snow cover extremely fragile.

Check out the Snow Water Equivalent chart from February 1, 2026, below. Keep reading for more on the storm that is expected to land in California next week.

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Snow Returns To The Forecast

Next week, finally, shows a crack in the lid.

The ridge over the West is expected to slowly break down as Pacific shortwave energy reaches Washington and Oregon, opening the door to more substantial precipitation. The Cascade Range looks best positioned for the first meaningful reload, with lighter spillover into the Northern Rockies and some moisture possibly sagging into far northern California late in the weekend.

Temperatures still lean above normal across much of the West in this window, so snow levels and the timing of colder air will decide whether this refresh feels like midwinter or late March...

The 8 to 15 day window carries a broader hint of hope, with the usual long-range uncertainty. Ensemble guidance brings a trough into the West Coast and favors a shift toward above-normal precipitation across much of the West, with a signal that reaches beyond the coast into interior terrain.

The same guidance has a possible lee-side cyclone somewhere east of the Rockies, and those setups can turn a modest Pacific wave into a wider snow footprint from the Great Basin into higher ranges farther east.

Looking a bit beyond that, the mid-to-late February window tilts wetter for the Pacific Northwest, the Northern Great Basin, and the northern Rockies, while warmth holds on in the Southwest. If you’re chasing turns, keep your plans flexible and your elevation high, because the map is starting to reward northern targets again!

Why It Hasn't Snowed

The atmosphere has built a pattern that keeps repeating.

A broad ridge sits over the Intermountain West with another ridge upstream over the North Pacific, and that combo holds the storm track at arm’s length. On the other side of the continent, deep troughing keeps loading the eastern half with arctic air, and a strong block near Greenland helps anchor that wave setup. When heights stay high over the West, storms shear apart, detour north toward the Aleutian Islands, or slide south and spin up near Baja California.

The jet stays active, but it just keeps aiming away from the West.

The season has also had two different failure modes. In the Pacific Northwest, storms have arrived, but warmth has lifted snow levels and turned many wet pushes into rain at elevations that usually fall as snow. Farther south and inland, the storm parade has been sparse, so the deficit is simpler. Across much of the West, early-season warmth pushed precipitation toward rain rather than snow, and major basins ran near record warmth through December. Warm rain stripped what little base existed and accelerated settling. Snow that falls cold and sticks behaves like savings, sitting in place until spring.

Unfortunately, we just haven't seen that so far this season.

Looking Ahead

Stay tuned in here at POWDER this week for an in-depth forecast as the storm approaches. Winter is coming back, friends!