Joel Gratz is making a living as a snow forecaster on his website:  www.coloradopowderforecast.com

(Gratz says it`s best to develop a cough at work a few days before you take a powder, er, a sick day.)

He took his own advice and skied at Aspen Highlands in more than a foot of powder that Monday.

And that`s the whole point of the Colorado Powder Forecast: letting skiers and snowboarders know when and where to find the best powder around the state. His site`s personality -- "Office Space" references are a favorite, and he calls himself a "meteorologist with 37 pieces of flair" -- is just a bonus for readers and a reflection of Gratz`s belief that "weather is awesome."

Gratz learned to ski at age 4 in Philadelphia, majored in meteorology at Penn State and moved to Boulder for graduate school. Now a meteorologist for hurricane and earthquake insurance company ICAT, he started his ski-specific forecasting after missing a big powder day.

"About four years ago, I missed a really, really deep early-season day at Steamboat, a couple of feet," Gratz said. "I skied Breckenridge that day in 3 to 6 inches of snow."

It made him mad, he said, that he was a meteorologist who loved powder and had missed it, even though no one was forecasting several feet of snow there.

"After that I really started paying attention to the weather, and trying to do my own predictions rather than just trusting other people`s."                                                                                

The Powder Forecast started as an e-mail to some friends and grew into the current Web site, which launched in October and had 25,000 hits last month.

"It took a couple of years for me to feel like I had a clue what was going on, from watching snow and skiing it," Gratz said. "It`s not something you can pick up in a week."

One of the best ways to learn was to head to a ski area expecting 18 inches and getting 2, he said; it bothers him that forecasters rarely say whether they got it wrong after a storm. So Gratz reports his accuracy on his site, under a tab titled "Keep Me Honest."

"Last year, I was 50 percent right, about 25 percent pretty good, and 25 percent absolutely did not do it correctly," he said.

Jerry Kopack, of Boulder, has been following Gratz`s forecasts for three years. Earlier this month, Kopack skied chest-deep powder at Wolf Creek; Gratz had predicted up to 60 inches of snow there.

"He told me there would be anywhere from 4 to 5 feet by Tuesday morning, and he was right on," Kopack said. "It was supposed to start Sunday night and snow all day Monday, and that`s exactly what it did.

"It was amazing. It was literally bottomless powder."

Even though Gratz dishes out advice on how and when to call in sick for powder days, he doesn`t have to do it himself. He just takes the day off.

"There are other people there who enjoy snow and powder days, but I`m the only unreasonably excited meteorologist there."