After roughly a month without significant snow, winter weather will return this week to Montezuma and La Plata counties and the San Juan Mountains.
Snow is expected beginning Tuesday night stretching through Wednesday evening, with a few inches in some places and nearly 2 feet in others. Freezing temperatures will follow the snowfall in the latter half of the week.
A winter storm watch is in effect for the U.S. Highway 160 corridor, from Cortez to Pagosa Springs from 12:01 a.m. through 9 p.m. Wednesday.
“The bulk of precipitation is going to occur Tuesday night and early Wednesday as the system lifts across the area,” said Megan Stackhouse, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. “It's going sit there for a little bit on Wednesday morning before finally pushing out later on in the day.”
While the Cortez and Durango areas will receive a few inches, other parts of Southwest Colorado will see more significant snow.
Forecasts show 8 to 12 inches of snow falling on the southwest San Juan Mountains, which includes Silverton and Rico.
The Pagosa Springs area is looking at 4 to 8 inches, and about 20 inches of snow could fall on Wolf Creek Pass, Stackhouse said.
“We're really expecting the peak amounts to occur in the southwest San Juan Mountains,” Stackhouse said. “They're really in that favored (forecast) pattern, so we're expecting to get some good snow there.”
In other parts of Southwest Colorado, forecasts show little accumulation with 1 to 3 inches in Cortez and Dolores, according to the National Weather Service.
Temperatures will start to dip Tuesday and remain cold through the end of the workweek as the storm moves through and brings a cold front with it.
Lows in the upper teens and low 20s on Monday and Tuesday will be replaced by single digits, including a low of 8 degrees in Cortez on Thursday night, the weather service said.
“As the system comes in, it’s looking to drop into highs in the 20s,” Stackhouse said.
“ (The storm) is being influenced by stuff going on in Canada, so we're getting a lot of good Arctic air coming in,” Stackhouse said.
According to the forecast for Durango, temperatures will start to rebound on Friday, but that rebound will be determined by how much snow falls on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“ (We) could be looking at staying in the 20s for several days,” Stackhouse said. “We will have to see what happens with the snow, because that'll be a big drive on the temperatures.”
ahannon@durangoherald.com
