DENVER — Portions of southwestern Colorado will see nearly a foot of snow this week with some potential for snow south and east of Denver by Wednesday night into Thursday, according to forecasters with the National Weather Service.
The snow will ramp up across the southern mountains Tuesday night through Wednesday, with models showing accumulations of four-to-eight inches by late Wednesday afternoon, with additional accumulation Wednesday night, weather service officials in Grand Junction said in their latest forecast discussion.
A winter weather advisory for the southwest San Juans will go into effect from 11 p.m. Tuesday to 5 a.m. Thursday.
Roads — specially bridges and overpasses — will likely become slick and hazardous, weather service officials said, and travel could be very difficult, potentially impacting the Wednesday morning and evening commutes for people in Durango, Pagosa Springs and those south of Telluride.
That snow will start to creep farther north and east as the day progresses at around 12 o’clock midday Wednesday, Denver7 Chief Meteorologist Lisa Hidalgo said earlier Tuesday, with potential snow for parts of the Denver metro area developing overnight Wednesday into early hours of Thursday morning.
“This is where things get tricky,” she said. “I’ve seen a storm like this shift just 15-20 miles south and we don’t get much of anything here in town, or if it moves a little farther north, we could pick up a few inches of snow.”
Hidalgo said current models indicated parts of the Denver metro could see anywhere from a trace to around six inches. “I think we’re going to fall somewhere in the middle there, between two and three inches, it looks like, by early Thursday morning.”
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She cautioned that models could change and advised people to stay tuned to the weather forecast to get a clearer picture of the potential precipitation for the Denver metro.
“Historically, these types of systems have been difficult to forecast” because of weather patterns present with systems like the one that’s coming to the southwest mountains of Colorado, weather service officials in Boulder said in their latest forecast discussion.
They said Tuesday the potential for snow south and east of Denver was anywhere between 20-60% Wednesday night and Thursday, “however, confidence in where this band will be is still very low at this point.”
If any snow does fall in the Denver metro, temperatures will be warm enough for melting to occur by Thursday afternoon, which calls for a high of 42 degrees.
Temperatures are expected to be in the mid-50s starting Friday through the weekend.
So how is the 2024-25 snow season stacking up to last year? Denver7 is updating the monthly snowfall report and cumulative totals in the infographics below. You can view a fullscreen version at this link.