The snowstorm in Colorado is now Denver’s fourth biggest storm on record – with more snow coming Sunday night – The Denver Post

The snowstorm in Colorado is now Denver’s fourth biggest storm on record – with more snow coming Sunday night – The Denver Post

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A historic snowstorm that blew Colorado on Sunday dumped 2 feet of snow in the Denver area, knocking out the power of tens of thousands of people, stranding others in their vehicles, closing highways and closing many schools and government offices Monday.

The weekend’s snowstorm recorded the fourth largest ever in Denver since 6 p.m. Sunday with 24.1 inches of snow at the city’s official measuring point at Denver International Airport. The snow is expected to fall for a few more hours.

The total beat only the 23.8 inches of snow that fell on Denver in December 1982 and is the largest snowfall in the city since 31.8 inches fell in March 2003.

“It was definitely a historic storm,” said Alan Reppert, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather. “Definitely something we can happily see as a very rare event.”

As snow began to fall Saturday night, the storm around Sunday afternoon reached blizzard, meteorologist Jim Kalina told the National Weather Service in Boulder. This means that as the snow fell, winds accelerated to at least 35 km / h and reduced visibility for more than a quarter mile for longer than three hours.

Kalina expected the blizzard to continue until about midnight Sunday. At that time, he expected another 2 to 5 inches of snow in the metro area.

Total in the rest of the metro area included 16 centimeters elsewhere in Denver, 24 centimeters in Arvada and 23.1 centimeters in Aurora and nearly 20 centimeters in Boulder, according to National Weather Service records. In early weather reports, between 3 and 16 inches of snow were shown in the ski towns of Colorado.

Reppert noted that the Netherlands reported about 36 centimeters of snowfall and that some areas would probably “see at about 40 centimeters by the time it’s all done.”

The blizzard caused Denver Public Schools and many other suburban districts, including Douglas County, Adams 12, Cherry Creek and Littleton, to declare snow days on Monday, while a smaller number, such as Jeffco Public Schools, announced that students remotely learn. classes for the day.

A complete list of school closures can be found at denverpost.com.

Snowfall was expected to continue early Monday morning and stop around 5 p.m., Kalina said. The temperature will probably reach a high of 37 on Monday and drop to the low 20s during the night.

Airlines canceled hundreds of flights that would leave DIA on Sunday as the storm escalated, although about ten planes were able to take off early in the morning. By noon, the airport had closed all six runways due to snow and poor visibility, although the terminals and access portals remained open to passengers.

And late in the afternoon, DIA officials asked people not to drive to the airport, declaring Peña Boulevard impassable with multiple vehicles stranded along the driveway.

Early in the day, wet, heavy snowfall forced officials to close several streets of Interstate 70 and 25 near Denver, near the Eastern Plains and in northern Colorado, to the Wyoming border.

For every truck that AAA Colorado had en route Sunday afternoon, there were eight calls for emergency services, spokesman Skyler McKinley said in a tweet. In addition, at least four of the organization’s trucks also had to be rescued.

“You know it’s not safe to drive even if the AAA trucks get stuck,” McKinley wrote.

Delegates from the sheriff in Weld County – who were hit hard by snow and wind – rescued at least six stranded drivers early Sunday afternoon, including the driver of a tractor trailer that overturned.

Weld County Sheriff Joe Moylan said that while his deputies used a military transport vehicle during the rescue services, even that 25-ton, mine-resistant vehicle needed the help of a Colorado Department of Transportation to reach stranded drivers. The visibility dropped to 7 feet, he said, forcing deputies to respond only to life or death calls at the time.

“The wind is as bad as the snow, there is almost no visibility,” Moylan said during the storm.

At the same time, hundreds of power outages across the metro area and northern Colorado left tens of thousands of Xcel Energy customers without electricity. According to Xcel’s website, 18,437 customers were without power, mainly around Greeley. Jefferson County – mostly Westminster and Arvada – and Larimer County also saw thousands without power during the day.

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