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”.
A band of S/S+ will cont to rotate NW thru 7 pm. Locations under the heaviest bands will see snow rates - 1"/hr #COwx pic.twitter.com/p5WciLoNGa
— NWS Boulder (@NWSBoulder) January 2, 2015
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:
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.
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.
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.