Enjoy the warmth on Sunday and Monday because a storm is moving in for the middle part of the week with plummeting temps and widespread travel impacts as snow spreads across the region Tuesday night into Wednesday.
High temperatures on Tuesday will occur early in the day and fall in the afternoon as snow over the mountains in the middle of the day begins to move east and continues to envelope the region Tuesday night. The Wednesday morning commute will be challenging across the viewing area with snow on the roads, falling snow and very cold temps. It’s likely that a number of schools close on Wednesday due to the temps and snow.
Snow will wind down late Wednesday or Wednesday evening and move out of the area by Thursday. Details are becoming more clear with the incoming storm and we feel comfortable enough at this point to give you a first look at how much snow may fall.
Parts of the eastern plains may have less than three inches, but could see more depending on how fast the snow ends Wednesday evening. The Interstate and plains west of highway 71 are most likely to get 3″-6″ of snow with the foothills and mountains west of the Interstate getting more. The heaviest snow looks to fall over the Wet Mountains, Sangre de Cristo Mountains and mountains west of Alamosa, where more than a foot is possible in some cases.
Given that we are still 3.5 days out on the storm – a useful tool is to look at the probability of ending up outside of the most likely 3″-6″ range to see if the storm has a better chance of being a “boom” or a “bust”. If we end up outside of our currently forecasted range in Colorado Springs proper, it’s probably because we’re on the higher end of things.
There are two reasons for this. The storm is pretty slow moving and temperatures will be at perfect snow making temps Tuesday night and the first part of Wednesday so it will be easy for the snow to stack up.
Stay with the FOX21 Storm Team over the next few days. We’ll continue to learn more about the incoming storm – get more specific on how much snow we expect – picking out finer details of who gets the most and how much you’ll get.
