Steamboat Springs — The 33-inch base at Steamboat Ski Area will get scant help from the cold front moving into the area during the next couple of days, forecasters said.

A storm system was expected to start moving in Thursday evening and continue until about 6 p.m. today, but forecaster Mike Chamberlain, of the National Weather Service's Grand Junc­tion office, said the snowfall is expected to be 6 to 12 inches for the entire storm system. A more conservative estimate on the National Weather Service Web site estimated 1 to 2 inches through Saturday.

Asked whether this would be the storm to get Steamboat out of its low-snow funk, Cham­berlain said Routt County probably is out of luck.

"The mountains that are favored, of course, are the southern mountains," including the San Juan Mountains, Cham­berlain said.

Similarly, the south faces of mountains will get the most snow during the intense initial portion of the storm.

The system will shift and favor the northern mountains later in the storm, he said, and flurries are expected throughout the weekend.

"It's not a big storm," he said. But "with time, sometimes that snowfall adds up."

Steamboat will remain in a winter weather advisory until 6 p.m. today, but that could be extended if the storm hits harder than expected, Cham­berlain said.

Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. reported 2 inches of snow from Tues­day and Wed­nes­day.

All of the trails are open at Steamboat Ski Area, even though the base has dropped from 42 inches on Jan. 3 — the highest in January — to 33 inches Thursday.