Southern Colorado was absolutely slammed with snow Sunday into Monday with several mountain areas grabbing well over a foot of fresh snowfall!
The funny thing about this snow is some areas, like Colorado Springs, saw a mix of heavy and light snow. People living west of I-25 saw a range of 6 to 12 inches while anyone east of I-25 generally got less than 4 inches.
The question has been asked, is this the biggest snow we’ve seen in two winter seasons? The KOAA weather team, with the help of data provided by the National Weather Service, has the answer!
In order to answer this question, we have to choose points in the city that received snowfall yesterday, and have records of snow over the past two winters. We found a few in the area:
Colorado Springs Airport: 2.2 inches
Manitou Springs: 11.5 inches
Central Colorado Springs: 4 inches
East of I-25 in Colorado Springs:
For areas east of I-25 in Colorado Springs, this was far from the biggest snow we’ve had over the last two winters. On April 4th, 2017, we had 4.9 inches of snow reported at the airport. This past April on the 20th, we had 4.2 inches reported.
If you zoom into the map above, you’ll see over by Woodmen and Union there was a 3 inch snow report. This is still less than the biggest total we saw out of the airport over the last two seasons. With this data, we can definitively say that for areas east of I-25, this was NOT the biggest snow over the last two winters.
West of I-25 in Colorado Springs:
For areas west of I-25 in Colorado Springs, we can say this was the biggest snow we’ve had in two winters, but we have much less data to do so. Looking at the map, we have a report of 10 inches in the Rockrimmon neighborhood and an 11.5 inch report by Manitou Springs.
Only the Manitou Springs report has data that dates back to early 2017. The biggest total over the last two winters at this Manitou Springs location was a report of 10.5 inches on April 4th in 2017. The next biggest snow totals was 5 inches reported this year on October 31st.
With several social media reports and one official report of western Colorado Springs seeing many totals of 10 or more inches, including the Manitou Springs reading, it’s fair to say this WAS the biggest snow west of I-25 in Colorado Springs over the last two winter seasons!
For fun, what about Monument:
Not only do we have data in Monument for Monday/Sunday’s snow, we also have data for that location over the last two years. If you click on the map above, we had a report of 10 inches in Monument from Sunday to Monday’s snow storm.
The last snowfall of 10 inches or more occurred on April 29th in 2017, which is two winters ago. Using this data we can draw the conclusion that what no, this was not the biggest snow for Monument in the last two winters, it came within an inch!
Click here for a full list of snow totals across southern Colorado from Sunday into Monday.
