New Year’s Day Snow, Next Chance Saturday

Yesterday’s snow across southern and eastern portions of the metro area was what we like to call in the biz an “over performer” (nice to see every once and awhile!). A narrow band of snow set up during the early afternoon hours from south of Castle Rock extending northeast into Parker and southeast Aurora -- then, didn’t move for hours. Snowfall totals under this narrow band exceeded 6” in many cases, while the City and County of Denver generally received less than 2”.

While not a widespread event in the least, it was an impactful event for those areas that sat under this snow band for so many hours on Thursday. Here are a few snowfall totals maps from CoCoRaHS, note the extremely sharp gradient from southeast to northwest for snow totals.

Denver metro:
CoCoRaHS New Year's Day snowfall totals

Arapahoe County / South

Another chance for snow Saturday
There will be another chance for snow across eastern Colorado Saturday and Saturday evening before it looks like things will quiet down a bit heading into next week. This will be a quick hitting system but will have the potential to bring another 1 - 4” of snow to much of northeast Colorado before moving out Saturday night.

Weather5280 Models | GFS 6hr precip type Saturday afternoon

At the moment, models are trying to setup the highest snowfall totals from Denver northeast along I-76 with this system, but it’s hard to say exactly where the heavier snowfall will setup. I expect most locations to end up in the 0.5 - 2” range, with pockets of 2 - 5” with this system across the northeast Plains.

This system also brings another delivery of Arctic air with it. Fortunately the worst of it will will stay north of the state then push east into next week, but Saturday night will once again feature temperatures in the single digits to near 0 degrees across northeast Colorado.

Next cold clips northeast CO, but worst stays north and east of state into next week | WeatherBell Analytics

It’s been a wintry 10 days across the state, I hope you all are enjoying! And hey, maybe yesterday’s New Year’s Day snow was a sign of things to come in 2015.