Powder chasers had their work cut out for them during the 2011-2012 season, with snowfall averages down across the state and winter storms few and far between. To be in the right place at the right time, you had to be either very lucky or, better yet, following the powder predictions of Boulder-based meteorologist Joel Gratz, co-founder of OpenSnow.com. The website launched in earnest in November last year, offering the official daily and five-day snow-report tallies from ski areas in Colorado and across the country, as well as weather forecasts based on live data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That's information you can find elsewhere, but Gratz — an avid skier — puts it all together in his Colorado Daily Snow dispatches, with pow projections so accurate that local skiers and snowboarders now take them as prophetic.