DENVER — A winter storm continues to blast Colorado’s mountains bringing treacherous travel conditions on Thursday as a cold front pushes through the eastern part of the state plunging temperatures in the Denver metro area and eastern plains.
After warming into the low 50s in the metro early in the day,, the passing front was expected to drop temps up to 20 degrees in an hour, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) in Boulder.
Temps were expected to fall into the upper 20s but with the winds it would feel as low as 10 degrees outside.
"Our temps went from 48 degrees at 11 a.m. to 30 degrees by 1 p.m., and those temps will keep falling," said Denver7 meteorologist Stacey Donaldson. "We will be near 15 degrees by the evening commute."
While heavy snow and high winds were expected to continue through the afternoon hours in Colorado’s northern and central mountains, the moisture should taper off in the higher elevations later on Thursday, said the NWS.
A winter storm warning remained in effect through 5 p.m. for portions of Grand, Boulder, Gilpin, Clear Creek, Summit, and Park Counties where an additional 3 inches of snowfall was possible.
The NWS said widespread blowing snow could be an issue in the mountain passes.
Snowfall totals were estimated at around 3 to 6 additional inches in Summit and Grand County higher elevations and then between 6 to 12 inches in the Park Range, said the NWS.
An avalanche warning was also in place until 5 p.m. Thursday for Park Range, Flat Top, Medicine Bow, Never Summer Mountains as well as the Front Range, Gore Range and Ten Mile Range areas.
“Heavy snow and strong winds have created very dangerous avalanche conditions. Large and dangerous avalanches will be very easy to trigger,” warned the NWS.
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Mountain snow was expected to come to an end by Friday morning as Denverites should expect to wake up to another cold day.
Friday’s low temperature was expected to drop to around 3 degrees and only warming up to the low 30s.
But the weather quickly turns a corner and temperatures rebound into the lower 40s for Saturday and then the upper 40s by Sunday in Denver, finally reaching a high temperature of 50 degrees by Monday.
Tuesday and Wednesday of next also show temperatures slightly warmer with highs reaching nearly 50 degrees.
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