Across the United States this winter, few contrasts have been as jarring as the one between powder-choked New England hills and the lean slopes of the central Rockies. While Vermont’s lifts spin over deep, midwinter snow, large parts of Colorado have been scraping by on a fragile base and record low snowpack. The gap has become so stark that meteorologists are using it as a case study in how shifting patterns can flip long‑held assumptions about where the best snow will fall.
The story is not simply East versus West, or a one‑off fluke. It is a season in which a traditionally colder, wetter storm track has locked in over the Northeast, feeding Vermont’s ski economy, while stubborn high pressure and warmth have starved Colorado’s mountains of the moisture they usually bank on. I set out to trace how that happened, what it means for skiers and water managers, and why forecasters say this kind of split winter may become more common.
Vermont’s powder pipeline versus Colorado’s dry spell
For much of this season, the Green Mountains have looked like the Rockies used to in glossy brochures, with storm after storm refreshing the snowpack across Vermont from the spine of the state to the smaller community hills. Regional ski reports show a healthy blanket at resorts large and small, with base depths that have allowed terrain to open steadily and stay open through midwinter thaws. On independent tracking sites, the Vermont ski report pages have read like a highlight reel, with frequent mentions of fresh snow and strong coverage from early in the season.
That abundance has stood in sharp relief to conditions in Colorado, where the same trackers have documented a thin and often icy base at marquee destinations. The Colorado ski report pages have repeatedly flagged below‑average coverage, with some high‑elevation resorts relying heavily on snowmaking to keep core trails open. A detailed comparison of Snow coverage at Bolton Valley, VT, and at Keystone, CO, underscored the reversal, showing Bolton Valley buried in natural snow while Keystone in Colorado exposed more rock and grass than locals are used to seeing in midwinter, a snapshot that captured how far expectations have flipped between the two regions.
How a meteorologist framed the “wild gap”
Mountain forecasters have been blunt about how unusual this setup is, and one of the clearest explanations has come from Meteorologist Chris Tomer, who specializes in high‑country patterns. In a recent Mountain Weather Update, Meteorologist Chris Tomer described a stubborn ridge of high pressure parked over the central Rockies that has deflected Pacific storms north and south. That Pattern has left Colorado in a relative snow shadow, even as colder air and moisture have been funneled into the Northeast, where passing lows have wrung out heavy snow over the Adirondacks and Green Mountains. The result is a jet stream configuration that favors Vermont’s latitude and orientation while starving Colorado’s usual storm corridors.
In a separate briefing on what he called the worst snowpack in years, he warned that high pressure has not only cut off frequent storms but also allowed warm, dry air to erode what little snow has fallen. In that video, the phrase “Perhaps Colorado will get lucky and there will be some March and April systems that drop snow in the Upper Arkansas and Platte Riv” captured both the hope and the uncertainty facing water managers and resort operators. When a meteorologist who spends his days tracking western storms is pointing to late‑season hail‑Mary systems in March and April as the best chance to salvage the Upper Arkansas and Platte Riv basins, it is a sign of how deep the deficit has become.
Denver’s snowless streak and the psychological shock
The gap between Vermont and Colorado has been felt most acutely in Denver, where residents are used to seeing at least a few early‑season storms coat the city and nearby foothills. Instead, the city pushed into record territory for lack of snow, with officials noting that the longest recorded streak without measurable snow is 232 days, a mark that has become a reference point for how abnormal the current pattern feels. That figure, which ties a 2021 record and a streak set in 1887, has been invoked repeatedly as residents look up at bare lawns and dry streets in months that usually bring shovels and plows. For a city that markets itself as a gateway to winter adventure, the optics of a snowless skyline while flights depart for powder days in New England have been jarring.
National coverage of the early season captured that contrast vividly, noting that Denver was still snowless while Vermont ski slopes were off to a strong start. One widely shared piece described how There is reason to hope for more snow in the upcoming weeks, even in the I‑95 corridor, as colder weather appears on the horizon. That same framing underscored how Vermont’s early bounty has become a national talking point, while Colorado’s dry spell has turned into a symbol of the season’s weirdness. For skiers who have long assumed that a ticket to the Rockies is a safer bet than a drive to New England, the psychological adjustment has been as real as the meteorological one.
Snowpack, ski economies, and the water stakes in Colorado
Beyond the optics, the snow gap carries real economic and hydrological consequences for Colorado. Statewide monitoring has shown Colorado’s snowpack slipping further into record low territory, with forecasters warning that even a decent weekend storm is likely to improve conditions only modestly. That kind of deficit matters for more than ski tourism, since the snowpack functions as the region’s largest natural reservoir, feeding rivers and reservoirs that supply cities and farms across the West. When a meteorologist talks about the worst snowpack and not much moisture relief moving forward, it is a warning about summer water supplies as much as about winter recreation.
On the slopes, the impact has been immediate. A detailed comparison of Snow coverage at Bolton Valley and Keystone showed how Vermont’s Bolton Valley has been able to market deep, natural snow while Keystone in Colorado has leaned on man‑made coverage to keep marquee runs open. That same analysis noted that some Vermont mountains have ranked among the 2nd and 3rd snowiest resorts in North America this season, a bragging right that usually belongs to western giants. For Colorado, the combination of thin coverage, higher snowmaking costs, and skiers chasing storms to other regions has translated into softer bookings and more pressure on late‑season holidays to make up the difference.
Storm tracks, arctic blasts, and Vermont’s ongoing haul
Part of what makes this winter so disorienting is that Colorado has not been entirely devoid of cold, just short on sustained moisture. A recent forecast highlighted One more arctic hitting Colorado before a rapid warm‑up, a pattern that brings brief cold snaps but not the kind of moisture‑laden storms that build a deep base. Another outlook framed Colorado’s winter as a series of near misses, with the main storm track displaced just far enough east or north that the state catches only the fringes. For resorts, that means icy mornings after cold fronts, followed by rapid thaws that stress snowmaking systems and shorten the window for quality skiing.
Vermont, by contrast, has been squarely under the firehose of that displaced storm track. A widely viewed video on heavy snow in the Northeast showed heavy snow continuing in Vermont and New York, with Comments stacked beneath clips of buried cars and waist‑deep drifts. That same feed linked out to “Canadian Winter Hacks You NEED To Know” and “25 Weird Facts” videos, a reminder of how viral winter content has become when Americans Won Understand just how different conditions can be a few time zones apart. For Vermont’s ski towns, the social‑media amplification of deep days has been a marketing windfall, even as their counterparts in the Rockies watch from comparatively bare slopes.
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