Official 2022-2023 Colorado Winter and Snow Thread (Vail: closing, estimated)

[DOUBLE H]

Looks like a very sizable storm hits the western slope tomorrow morning. I was watching Fox31 an hour ago and they should one of their people in Georgetown with a steady 40 m.p.h. wind going. They are calling for 12 to 20 inches of snow in the high country. The Weather Channel was showing how low that jet stream is dropping. Colorado's front range is going to be nasty for a couple days, looks like.

[parfleche]

Looks like Montezuma co will get hit tonite thru thursday we are already 146% snowpack in the Dolores river valley and McPhee should be full so Ranchers will get 100% irrigation this year.Also enough for white water rafting on the Dolores river.First time since 2019.Looking good!

[pikabike]

ACK, we have been getting the infamous pink snow--snow dusted with fine red dust. It melts too fast when the sun comes out, and we are supposed to get temps in the 40s in a couple days from now. The ground is already so saturated that when I chop and remove a chunk of "glacier" in the driveway, the water soaking the soil below immediately rises to the surface and sits there or runs like a stream.

The several inches of snow we got this morning all got blasted in during a blizzardy period of slightly more than one hour. Never seen it come down that fast in this area (had worse in the Front Range quasi-blizzard of 2003: 4" per hour for many hours).

Much colder than normal in much of November, plus December, January, and so far February. I don't mind the cold. The multiple onslaughts of heavy, wet snow are a different story.

[DOUBLE H]

Am watching Mesa County's NBC affiliate KKCO. They have announced Lizard Head Pass, Red Mountain Pass, Wolf Creek Pass, and Poncha Pass are closed indefinitely. The nastiest part of this system is coming through Western Colorado.

[Mike from back east]

Snowpack totals for western states are off the charts, it's a blowout year.

[himain]

Ugly next two days

[DOUBLE H]

Mesa County's next few days look fairly quiet, a system will be coming in Thursday night. The snow situation in the area Pikabike and parfleche are at, yep---a bunch! I was in Durango over the weekend to visit a long time friend. That much snow was good to see.

[brightdoglover]

Rain predicted this week at our 7000 foot elevation, probably snow up higher.

[pikabike]

I am hoping for just light rain.

That pink snow turned into layer cake. Shoveling it sometimes broke off slabs of thick white cakes sandwiching a thin layer of cinnamon powder.

Enjoying the rare sunny break from the snowfall.

[DOUBLE H]

Here comes another front-the weather forecasters call this one "the Pineapple Express." Winter storm warning is for all of Colorado--10 to 20 inches of snow at the 9,000 ft. level, will be cloudy for the next week or so in Mesa County.