A big storm will slowly traverse the southern Rockies late this week and into the weekend. This will mean big snow totals and a tough forecast.
This storm is a cut-off storm, meaning that it is cut off from the main west-to-east flow of weather. It’s essentially drifting through the atmosphere instead of being carried along by the jet stream. This makes it more difficult to forecast and also makes the forecasts more uncertain, even a day or two before the storm hits.
That being said, the models are coming into agreement that this storm will move through Arizona and then across the New Mexico / Colorado border before heading out to Kansas on Sunday. This track is favorable for heavy snow in southern Utah and most of Arizona, northern New Mexico, and southern Colorado. All of these areas will see good amounts from Thursday (Arizona, Utah) through Friday (Colorado, New Mexico).
As this storm moves east, it’ll create easterly winds that hit the eastern mountains of Colorado head on. This means lots of snow for the Denver area and also up into the foothills and along the continental divide at Loveland, Abasin, and Eldora on Saturday into Sunday morning.
Joel Gratz is a Meteorologist and the creator of OpenSnow.com.
Get the lastest snow conditions from your favorite Rocky Mountain resort:
Get snow reports, forecasts, and conditions for your favorite resorts, mountains and ski areas. Get Started
Login to Facebook Connect to post a comment
Please limit responses to 250 characters.