A snow storm is coming to southern Colorado Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and it's looking pretty heavy! Here's everything we know right now about the timing and totals.
The start time of this storm is at the end of the day Wednesday through Thursday morning. The graphic up above is purely for when the snow first starts falling, as most areas under 7,000 feet will actually see rain first before a change to snow.
The snow should end Thursday morning, starting up in the Pikes Peak Region and finishing along the New Mexico border by lunch time.
This is going to be a large snow for the majority of the Pikes Peak Region. Monument Hill and the west sides of Colorado Springs into Teller County will see the heaviest snow through Thursday morning.
The east and southeast sides of town will likely receive the smallest snow totals, but even 2 to 3 inches will make for very difficult commutes Thursday morning.
If the gap between Monument and Denver is not shut down, the drive north will be extremely dangerous from heavy snow and low visibility. Drives in and out of Teller County will also be dangerous.
The trickier forecast for this system is from Pueblo to Canon City. Northeast winds SHOULD push most of the snow into the Wet Mountains... but if this system slows down, we could add another inch to both towns.
Rain will fall first from Canon City to Pueblo Wednesday night, and that could easily lead to a layer of ice on the roads before the rain turns to snow. Thursday morning commutes will likely be slick and extreme caution is advised.
We feel pretty confident with these numbers at this point, with mountain towns in and around the Wet Mountains seeing the heaviest snow, and less along highway 50 east of Canon City.
Heavy snow is expected to fall along the southern I-25 corridor as well as the mountains to the west.
One of our models, the ECMWF (European) model develops a circulation in the sky, which would add 3 to 4 more inches onto these totals. As of now, we're not forecasting that much snow but half a foot or more is still expected for most of the region from late Wednesday night through Thursday morning.
Rain at first from Walsenburg to Trinidad could lead to icy conditions on I-25 before snow starts falling. Extreme caution should be taken if you need to drive to work Thursday morning, both for I-25 and especially on La Veta Pass.
