Beginning Thursday night, a Pacific storm is expected to wring itself out like a wet towel over Southwest Colorado, bringing up to 2 feet of snow to the San Juan Mountains.
The moisture will appear mostly as rain in lower elevations such as Cortez, Durango and Pagosa Springs, but even valleys below 8,000 feet in elevation may receive a few inches of snow, said Tom Renwick, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
“At the higher elevations, we are talking on the order of feet (of snow) – a couple of feet would not be out of the question with this one,” he said. “Skiers should rejoice; this should be a really good one for them.”
The precipitation is expected to start Thursday evening and continue into Saturday afternoon. A winter storm warning was issued for elevations above 8,000 feet from 11 a.m. Thursday through Saturday, including the towns of Telluride, Rico, Hesperus, Silverton and Ouray. Southwest winds are expected to be 25-30 mph, with gusts reaching 55 mph. Sunny skies are expected on Sunday, but the National Weather Service says it will be cold, with a high in the upper 20s and a low around 10.
In Cortez, the National Weather Service forecast an 80 percent chance of rain on Thursday, and rain and snow on Friday. High temperatures were expected to be in the middle to upper 40s, with overnight lows dropping to 21 degrees on Friday.
As the storm approaches, the Colorado Department of Transportation is asking drivers to be cautious around snowplows and never pass them on the right. A driver crashed into a snowplow last week near Purgatory Resort while trying to pass it, said Lisa Schwantes, spokeswoman with the highway department.
CDOT will use its electronic message boards to remind drivers not to pass snowplows on the right, she said.
“They really need to give our guys room to work,” she said. “I know it seems like those plows are going slow, but they need to go the speed they’re going to most efficiently and safely remove the snow and apply their agents, whether it’s sand or liquid deicer. If folks would just stay back three to four car lengths.”
What about the polar vortex?Last week, forecasters had the polar vortex – a term that describes cold air from the North Pole – lasting deep into December and extending from the Pacific Northwest to the Northeast and dropping south into Colorado, Texas and Georgia. Though the wave of cold has hit the upper Midwest, it has spared the Southwest.
Meteorologists blame the volatile weather on two phenomena: La Niña in the Pacific and the Madden Julian Oscillation. Together, they will keep forecasters on their toes with bursts of cold and warmer-than-average temperatures, according to The Weather Co.
La Niña – defined by a cooler equatorial Pacific Ocean – can overpower winter conditions that make the West mild and the East cold. The Madden Julian Oscillation – a mix of clouds, rain, winds and pressure that crosses the tropics – weakens the high pressure across the northern ocean that pushes cold air from the Arctic into North America.
The weather is “a mess,” said Matt Rogers, of the Commodity Weather Group in Maryland, told USA Today. “We will be dealing with these swings a lot this winter.”
The (Cortez) Journal contributed to this article.