A winter weather advisory is in effect from midnight tonight through midnight Tuesday above 9,500 feet in the northwest and southwest San Juan Mountains of Western Colorado.
Snow is expected to be heavy at times and leave 4 to 8 inches at higher elevations. Wind gusts could reach 55 mph, the National Weather Service said.
Thunderstorms and rain are expected at lower elevations in Montezuma and La Plata counties.
Temperatures in Southwest Colorado are expected to drop to the lower 40s Monday night, then into the upper 20s Tuesday. Highs are expected to reach the upper 40s on Tuesday, then rise into the 50s Wednesday through Saturday as sunny skies return.
A large amount of moisture from the Pacific Ocean, known as an “atmospheric river,” is headed for Southwest Colorado.
“It’s basically this strong plume of moisture that comes off of the Pacific,” said Erin Walter, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. “It’s like this continuous stream, almost like a jet but in the form of moisture.”
Over the weekend, the atmospheric river dumped over 5 inches of rain in the San Francisco area, Walter said.
Most of the moisture from the storm system will be dropped in California over the Sierra Nevada’s and the Great Basin, with Southwest Colorado getting the last bit of that precipitation on Tuesday.
“We aren’t going to see feet of snow like the Sierra Nevada’s, but we are going to see some precipitation,” Walter said.
Southwest Colorado has been experiencing warm conditions, which will be a determining factor in how much precipitation falls in the region, Walter said.
“We’re seeing snow amounts higher up Tuesday morning, and then as the system moves through, some colder air will move in behind it,” Walter said.
Reporter Nicholas Johnson of The Durango Herald contributed to this article.
