That holiday feel is likely to be in the air for Thanksgiving week as two snowstorms are expected to move through the Four Corners.
A winter weather advisory is in effect from 8 p.m. Monday to 5 p.m. Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. One to 3 inches of snow is possible in Montezuma County Monday night.
Snowfall is expected to be moderate to heavy beginning Monday evening, with 40 mph winds above 9,500 feet in the San Juan Mountains. There’s a 30% chance of precipitation, the weather service said.
Icy and snowpacked roads and blowing snow will make travel difficult. Whiteout conditions are possible.
Dennis Phillips, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction, said a system that is expected to favor northern and central Colorado could leave a dusting of snow in Durango on Monday night into Tuesday morning.
“You’re likely to see a dusting in Cortez and Durango. You might wake up Tuesday morning with maybe an inch on the ground, but more likely a dusting,” Phillips said.
The storm coming through Monday night through Tuesday morning could leave 5 to 10 inches in the Southern San Juan Mountains and more in the northern San Juan Mountains.
But the real action is likely to hit Southwest Colorado beginning with increasing clouds Wednesday with Wednesday’s chances of snow for Durango listed at 50%, 30% in Cortez, and 60% in Pagosa Springs.
Snowfall is expected to be moderate to heavy beginning Monday evening, with 40 mph winds above 9,500 feet in the San Juan Mountains. There’s a 30% chance of precipitation, the weather service said.
Icy and snowpacked roads and blowing snow will make travel difficult. Whiteout conditions are possible. In Montezuma County, temperatures are expected to fall to 19 degrees Monday night, and to 13 degrees Tuesday night.
It’s too early to list expected accumulations from the second of the week’s storms, which expected to extend from Wednesday through Saturday over the Four Corners, Phillips said.
But he added it looked like the U.S. Highway 160 corridor from Cortez to Pagosa Springs could see 3 to 5 inches of snow from Thanksgiving through Friday morning. “In the mountains, it will be measured in feet,” he said.
“This is a big, slow-moving system. It should be good for quite a bit of people. It will have a southerly flow and it will have moisture associated with it,” Phillips said.
The four week outlook from the Climate Prediction Center calls for below-normal temperatures through mid December in the Rocky Mountains with an equal chance of below or above normal precipitation.
The U.S. Drought Monitor map lists the Four Corner’s in a severe drought.
parmijo@durangoherald.com
