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 hazardous weather advisory was issued through Saturday for eastern Utah and western Colorado, but no warnings had been issued as of Wednesday afternoon.
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.”
shane@durangoherald.com
