A brief spell of winter weather beginning Friday will dampen this week’s unseasonably warm weather in Southwest Colorado, according to the National Weather Service.
Lower temperatures also are expected, but not low enough for much snow to accumulate at lower elevations.
Southwest Colorado has seen unseasonably warm weather this week. The high was 66 degrees Thursday in Cortez – the second-highest temperature for the day after a 71-degree record set on March 3, 2009, according to National Weather Service climate data.
Wednesday, the high in Cortez was 62 degrees – only 3 degrees off from the record of 65 degrees in 2008, said Jim Andrus, a weather watcher for NWS in Cortez.
Cortez is forecast to receive 1 to 3 inches of snow, and Durango is projected to receive 2 to 4 inches. Foothills near Bayfield could accrue up to 5 inches, said Mark Miller, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
At lower elevations, roads might be wet, Miller said.
A winter weather advisory issued Thursday afternoon called for 6 to 12 inches of snow at elevations above 9,000 feet in the southwest San Juan Mountains, with patchy blowing snow and winds of up to 35 mph that could impair travel.
With a high of 45 degrees on Saturday, snow will likely be wet, Andrus said.
“It looks like it’ll be a busy weekend here for precipitation,” he said.
However, the storm won’t come close to measuring up to the late-February storm, which dropped 6 to 10 inches of snow in Cortez and higher amounts at increasing elevations, with more than 40 inches at Wolf Creek Pass.
“This is a sneak preview of spring,” Andrus said.
The first day of meteorological spring was Monday, and with the change in seasons comes warmer systems, Miller said. Meteorologists define the four seasons in three-month periods, in part to make record-keeping easier.
There is “not a whole lot of cold air to work with – not that it won’t snow, it will,” he said.
Telluride is expected to receive 6 to 12 inches of snow. Red Mountain Pass could get 10 to 20 inches, and Wolf Creek Pass, 1 to 2 feet.
The system will not be seamless, but rather three-pronged in its development. It will move through the area beginning Friday and ending Sunday night, Miller said.
“There’s going to be a lot of stops and starts,” he said.
Snowpack is at 96% of average, according to the latest SNOTEL data measuring precipitation in the Dolores River Basin.
