Call it the harbinger of El Niño.
“The pattern has changed,” said Matthew Aleksa, a meteorologist with the Grand Junction office of the National Weather Service. “After these storms and maybe something Saturday, we’re going to be mild and dry into mid-December, with temperatures above normal.”
That doesn’t mean the area isn’t getting a taste of winter weather Wednesday and Thursday. The Colorado State Patrol reported that Wolf Creek Pass was getting slick mid-afternoon Wednesday, and the Colorado Department of Transportation reported that Coal Bank, Molas and Red Mountain passes were snowpacked and icy.
“The most precipitation will be in the next wave starting Thursday afternoon,” Aleksa said. “The impacts Thursday will also be confined mostly to the elevation of the passes, but it will still be fairly mild, just 3 to 5 inches of accumulation.”
The storm predicted to have an 80 percent chance of precipitation Thursday will likely be rain mixed with snow in Durango, with an accumulation of a half inch or less, Aleksa said. Intermittent rain storms are most likely.
“(Thursday), the best moisture will be south of the Four Corners,” he said. “It will be mostly rain there, too, except for snow in the mountains of New Mexico.”
Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort, which is reporting a mere 12 inches of snow on the ground, much of it machine-made, may get up to 9 inches by the time all’s said and done, but there are no guarantees, Aleksa said.
One more chance for some precipitation is forecast for Saturday, but he called that storm fairly weak. There also is a possibility of a storm hitting California by Dec. 12 and arriving in Southwest Colorado a couple of days later, but it’s so far out on the weather service’s models that no reliable predictions can be made.
abutler@durangoherald.com
On the net
Visit www.cotrip.org for information about real-time road conditions.
Call 511 to listen to recorded information about road conditions, projected trip travel times and trucker information.
Follow @coloradodot on Twitter for traveler information.
Visit www.crh.noaa.gov/gjt for the latest weather forecast.
