This past weekend's storm system gave us some pretty high snow totals across Southern Colorado. Closer to the northwest part of Colorado Springs, we saw 5.8 inches. The airport didn't see as much and reported 3.9 inches. This still broke the daily record which previously was 2.9 inches broken back in 2021. Peyton and Black Forest also saw some higher snow totals closer to 4 inches.
Well, why did we see so much snow with this past system? There was not much moisture associated with this winter storm and with temperatures well below freezing, our atmosphere squeezed out as much snow as possible. Meteorologists will usually assume with an incoming winter storm that for every inch of rainfall that we receive, we will get 10 inches of snow.
Most of the time we don't get that much moisture and like this past storm there was only 0.11" of rain to work with. We had to assume that for every inch of rainfall we got, there would be 35 inches of snow. With 0.11" of water that got translated to 3.9" of snow. This is very similar to what the ski resorts will see with the light and powdery snow.
This past storm system not only gave us above average snowfall amounts for January, but it also pushed us above average for the entire season (July - June). For the month of January, Colorado Springs and Pueblo will average 4.9" of snowfall. We have already seen 8.8" of snow in Colorado Springs and 10.3" for Pueblo.
Looking at the entire season, Colorado Springs will average 32.5" of snowfall while Pueblo averages 28.3". We have already received 34.6" of snow for the Springs. Pueblo is not quite above average but it only takes an extra 3 or 4 more inches to put us above average.
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