Powerful storm cuts power, shuts roads in 3 states
A powerful late winter snowstorm intensified over the central Rocky Mountains on Sunday with heavy snow and wind leading to airport and road closures, blackouts and avalanche warnings in parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska.
The National Weather Service in Wyoming called it a “historic and crippling” winter storm that would cause extremely dangerous to impossible travel conditions through at least early Monday.
Major roads southeast of a line that crosses diagonally from the southwest corner of Wyoming to its northeast corner were closed Sunday, including roads in and out of Cheyenne and Casper.
Over 2 feet of snow had fallen just outside Cheyenne by 9:30 a.m. Saturday, the weather service reported, while other areas around the city had seen 16 to 19 inches. A Snotel site at Windy Peak in the Laramie Range reported 52 inches of snow in a 24hour period ending Sunday morning, the weather service said.
A person who answered the phone at the Love’s Travel Stop in Cheyenne, but declined to give his name, said 98 trucks were stranded there. They were taking fuel out a can at a time to fill up generators on the trucks to keep their refrigerators or freezers running, he said.
Interstate 80 was closed across southern Wyoming and into the Nebraska panhandle, where a foot of snow was reported just north of Kimball, Neb. Interstate 25 was closed north from Fort Collins, Colo., to its end at Buffalo, Wy.
At Denver International
Airport, the runways were closed just before noon Sunday due to blowing snow and poor visibilities. “Many flights have already been canceled so the runway closures have minimal impacts,” airport officials said in social media posts. A foot of snow fell at the airport on Saturday and another foot was expected Sunday.
The Northern Colorado Regional Airport that serves the Fort Collins and Loveland
areas was closed Sunday morning after also receiving a foot of snow, according to the airport’s social media accounts.
An avalanche warning was in effect Sunday for the Rocky Mountains west of Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs where “intense snowfall will cause large and destructive avalanches,” Colorado Avalanche Center said. The center warned that avalanches could happen in
unusual locations and recommended against traveling in the backcountry.
An avalanche blocked Colorado Highway 14 in northcentral Colorado on Sunday, the Department of Transportation said.
Nearly 32,000 Excel Energy customers were without power Sunday in northcentral Colorado, while smaller outages were reported in the same area by the Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association.