Colorado Weather: Heavy snow hits mountains, snarls traffic, with rain and snow headed toward metro areas
The slow travel heading into Thanksgiving has begun as winter driving conditions return to the mountains Tuesday morning. Here is a view from Vail on I-70:
Travel conditions will stay slow for Colorado through late Wednesday. Here is a way to visualize that impact.
Do your eyes gravitate toward I-25 and those possible travel issues? Let's dig a bit deeper. For today, snowfall remains heavy in the mountains. For the metro areas, pockets of rain will form later today, turning into snowfall overnight and leaving behind some icy/slick travel conditions for the metro areas on Wednesday.
A better timeline here shows you the arrival and location of precipitation.
Or, in hourly form for Denver.
And, Colorado Springs.
Note, the steady climb of chances into late Tuesday (this will be a rain and rain/snow chance), with the peak of chances coming early through midday Wednesday (this will be snow chances). Here's a visual on rain vs snow chances.
We will need to be careful about icing by Tuesday evening, any wet pavement can obviously freeze as soon as we hit the evening. This initial chance for rain may also limit some public works departments from pre-treating roads for such ice.
The areas that are most likely to be impacted with travel issues are highlighted here with various alert levels.
Snowfall forecast
As far as totals, no real change from yesterday's post, below is a snowfall outlook through Thursday morning.
I will add some caution when looking at this forecast...there easily could be a narrow band that forms somewhere between Fort Collins and Downtown Denver (another possible on top of Colorado Springs). That snow band, if formed, could deliver several inches of snowfall that isn't accounted for on these two maps.
As far as metro area locations are concerned, the Palmer Divide and west-Denver suburbs likely get the biggest totals.
By Thanksgiving, however, this system will clear out and leave us with a calmer Thursday, albeit chilly. In fact, it stays cooler through the weekend. Thankfully from a travel perspective, we have an easier drive for the weekend with dry weather expected through Sunday.
If you missed it, we posted earlier this week about the winter outlook and trends as it pertains to La Niña. Here is that article:
And, if you are still wondering what in the world El Niño and La Niña are and why they matter, check out this explainer:
We hope you have a great Thanksgiving and safe travels. We will be here passing along forecast information to get you through. Subscribe today for our emails.