9th Annual BoulderCAST First Snowfall Contest
Are you eager for the first snow of the season? Have you already waxed your skis and purchased your Epic Pass? Our first big snow could be right around the corner! Mother Nature has been throwing wrenches into this annual contest the last few years making an accurate prediction for our first snowfall a monumental challenge! What’s in store for 2023? We provide a brief overview of Boulder’s first snowfall climatology and then pose a question…“When will Boulder’s first measurable snow occur this year?” Submit your guess for a chance to win an assortment of prizes. Those who get closest to the date and amount of our first snow win..
BOULDERCAST 2023 FIRST SNOW CONTEST ENTRY FORM
*Sorry but this contest is now closed to entries*
First snows of Boulder’s past
September weather is often a bit of a “mix bag” in the Denver Metro area. The first snow of the year can and often does occur during the month, but we’ve also seen historic flooding and lengthy heat waves. Mother Nature has been throwing wrenches into this annual contest the last few years. In 2020 we had our earliest accumulating snowfall on record in Boulder on September 8th — before the first snow contest was even announced! This led to an unprecedented “second” snowfall contest taking shape.
Then in 2021, autumn was extremely warm and dry which caused Boulder to tie for its latest ever first snowfall on November 17th in the lead-up to the Marshall Fire. This resulted in all contest participants being way off with the person guessing the latest date purely winning by default. Crazy snowfall contest times, indeed!
The first snow last year in 2022 was a bit of a disappointment with a rain/snow mix occurring during the daytime hours on October 27th. Boulder recorded an absolutely bare minimum first snow with only a dusting sticking on the grass, and that was only in SOME parts of town as temperatures were mostly above freezing.
The chart below shows the date of Boulder’s first measurable snowfall for each year dating back to 1948. Measurable means that officially 0.1″ or more of snow was recorded. As is often the case early in the snow season, a few flakes mix in with rain, or flurries briefly fly, but never stick to the ground. These are instances where a trace of snow has occurred, but wasn’t measurable. For the purposes of the contest, we don’t care about these non-measurable snowflakes. We want accumulation!
You can see there is a huge variation from year-to-year in the date of our first measurable snowfall. The earliest was September 8, 2020, with 1.7″ of snow falling. The latest measurable snow was November 17 of 2016 and 2021. That’s a spread of two and a half months! The normal (median) date of our first snow is October 17th.
How about a few percentiles for the gamblers out there? The odds of our first measurable snowfall occurring on or before…
- September 20th: 10%
- October 1st: 25%
- October 17th: 50%
- October 31st: 75%
- November 10th: 90%
These numbers work out nicely and equate to our first measurable snowfall occurring in September 25% of the time, in October 50% of the time, and in November 25% of the time.
Despite ongoing rapid climate change, the long-term average and trend, though clearly not statistically significant, are leaning towards earlier occurrences of Boulder’s first snowfall. You may want to keep that in mind for your guess this year!
As you might imagine, our first snow event each year is usually only a small amount…providing an introductory taste of winter. The histogram below shows that the 38 years from 1950 to 2017 had an inaugural snowfall less than 2.0″ (54% of the time). Boulder’s first snow only exceeded 6.0″ on 8 occasions (12% of the time). The average amount of Boulder’s first snow is 3.0″, while the median amount is 2.0″.
Enter our 2023 First Snow Contest!
Without further adieu, let’s move on to the contest! This is a community poll for the date you think the first MEASURABLE snowfall will occur in Boulder. Those who come closest to the actual date are the winners. For verification, we’ll go off the official Boulder climate station located at the NIST building in south Boulder (FYI, they follow UTC time for date cut-offs — roughly 5PM to 5PM local time).
For prizes, we’re giving away BoulderCAST Premium subscriptions and Amazon Gift Cards.
Among many perks, Premium members get full-access to our daily forecast discussion every morning. This is especially useful in the winter, when our meteorologists brain-dump thoughts for days leading up to impactful snowstorms. In case you weren’t with us over the last five winters, we tend to do very well for the entire Denver Metro area (2015-16 Recap / 2016-17 Recap / 2017-2018 Recap / 2018-2019 Recap / 2019-2020 Recap | 2020-2021 Recap | 2021-2022 Recap | 2022-2023 Recap). Premium members also have admittance to our full suite of weather model graphics, complete 6-day hiking and 6-day ski forecasts, have exclusive access to some content such as video forecasts and weather quizzes.
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The prizes for the contest are as follows:
- 1st place: 12-month Premium subscription + $30 Amazon Gift Card
- 2nd place: 6-month Premium subscription + $10 Amazon Gift Card
- Anyone who guesses within 1 day OR 0.1″ correct: 2-month Premium subscription
- All other entries: Virtual “pat on the back”
IMPORTANT: In the event that multiple participants select the same date, the tie-breaker of snowfall amount will be used.
To get things started, here are the dates that some of the BoulderCAST Team has placed their bets on for our first snow:
- Ben: November 4th – 1.1″
- Andrew: October 20th – 5.0″
- Keah: November 11th – 4.0″
- Matt: October 20th – 7.0″
Enter you NAME, EMAIL, and guesses for DATE and AMOUNT in the form below on or before Monday October 2, 2023. Please only one entry per person.
BOULDERCAST 2023 FIRST SNOW CONTEST ENTRY FORM
*Sorry but this contest is now closed to entries*
Prizes and recognition will be awarded in the days following our first dumping of snow. Let’s hope it’s a big one!
Photo taken along Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, May 2019
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