Snow, rain and cooler temperatures were expected to arrive Monday evening, courtesy of two storms merging over Southwest Colorado.
A cold front from the Pacific Northwest will meet a storm carrying moisture from the Pacific Southwest, producing snow above 8,000 feet in elevation, including up to 10 inches in the San Juan Mountains, said Dennis Phillips, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
“It’s kind of a mixture of those two systems coming together over us, and then they’ll depart by (Tuesday) afternoon,” Phillips said.
A winter weather advisory is in effect until 6 p.m. Tuesday for the San Juan Mountains, including Silverton, Rico and Telluride.
Valley floors, including Durango at 6,512 feet in elevation, were expected to receive rain Monday night and Tuesday morning, Phillips said.
Monday’s high was expected to hit 62 degrees, but Tuesday’s high will be 10 degrees cooler, he said.
“Most of that’s due to it being cloudy and cool,” Phillips said. “(It should) put some pretty good snow over the high peaks of the San Juans and then probably up to the Crested Butte area.”
The storm should blow out by noon Tuesday, making way for mild temperatures and mostly clear skies into mid-week next week, he said.
“It really seems like this next week should be dry and mild, especially the latter half of the week when we get into another southerly flow,” Phillips said.
shane@durangoherald.com
