It’s already snowed once, now it’s time to predict when it will snow for real!
I’m not asleep at the wheel per se, but busy, really busy. With that, I narrowly escaped missing our annual first measurable snowfall forecast contest. Not to worry; had last week’s early season cold shot given us our first measurable snow, we would have figured out another way to challenge your forecasting skills!

The contest
This year’s first place prize will be 2 lift tickets to Arapahoe Basin ski area. Awesome! A huge thank you to A-Basin for getting involved and contributing these tickets.

Second place isn’t too shabby either, a $25 gift card to Sports Authority. Third place will be a very cool, and of course very geeky Weather5280 t-shirt. Not sure what all those symbols mean? Basically, the perfect snowstorm for Denver. You can check out what all the symbols mean here.

The challenge is to forecast which day Denver (DIA) will receive its first measurable snowfall of the season. This means that 0.1 inches of snow or greater must be recorded at DIA.

The contest will run for 10 days: September 17th to September 27th (weather permitting). Each contestant will be limited to one entry. We’ve included some helpful hints in creating your forecast on the contest page, but two things to keep in mind: Denver’s average first snowfall is October 19, and we’ve been forecasting a cooler and wetter October than normal.

Contest page: Predict Denver’s First Measurable Snowfall, 2014

Odds and ends
We’ve never asked you to jump through any hoops to enter in the contest, and the same will be true again this year. That said, please help us get the word out by sharing this contest on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere. We sincerely appreciate all of our readers, and we see this as a fun opportunity to get everyone excited for our fast-approaching snow season in Colorado and to say thank you for being awesome!

Good luck and happy forecasting!