Blizzard plows through Colorado, Wyoming
A powerful winter storm was pasting Colorado, Wyoming and western Nebraska with heavy snow and making travel hazardous in parts of the region Sunday. The storm was also responsible for spawning tornadoes in the Texas Panhandle.
Midday Sunday, the snowstorm was raging, with winter storm warnings active in Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins, Colo., and blizzard warnings in Cheyenne and Laramie in Wyoming. Snowfall totals of 12 to 20 inches were expected in northern Colorado through Sunday night, with 20 to 30 inches in southeastern Wyoming.
Heavier amounts, topping three feet, are possible in some of the highest terrain. Cheyenne had received 25.8 inches of snow through noon local time, clinching a record for its biggest twoday snow total. In Cheyenne and throughout southeastern Wyoming, the National Weather Service forecast “difficult to impossible travel conditions” with “snow-packed roadways and whiteout conditions.”
Wind gusts had topped
50 mph in Cheyenne. Ten inches fell in four hours before sunrise, according to the National Weather Service. Weather radar indicated a lightning strike southwest of the city, where thundersnow occurred. The National Weather Service office described the deteriorating conditions as “incredibly dangerous” in its morning forecast discussion.
Denver International Airport, which reported 11.1 inches early Sunday morning, shut down all runways midday after five hours of moderate to heavy snow, winds gusting between
20 and 40 mph, and a visibility of one-quarter mile or less.
A special bulletin from the National Weather Service early Sunday highlighted the potential for snowfall rates of up to two to three inches per hour in northern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming and western Nebraska through early afternoon.
In some areas, the water content of the snow was bringing down trees and power lines.
“We just received a report from a caller in Wellington [about 10 miles north of Fort Collins] who said 10-inch diameter trees were snapped in his neighborhood and power lines are laying on the ground,” the National Weather Service in Boulder tweeted.
PowerOutage.US reported about 40,000 customers without electricity in northern Colorado midday, focused in the region around Fort Collins and Loveland. The heavy snow also posed avalanche danger for Colorado’s Front Range, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center.
Travel has proved challenging across Colorado and Wyoming throughout the storm. At Denver International Airport, about 1,300 flights had been canceled for Sunday before runways closed.
On Saturday evening, as the sun set, officials began shutting stretches of major interstates. The main arteries, Interstates 70 and 25, had been closed in stretches because of low visibility and slippery conditions.