According to a police scanner, crashes were being reported throughout the county after the slush earlier Monday froze in the evening chill.
The storm that skirted the city dumped feet in the mountains in much of the state.
“It’s a complicated system,” National Weather Service forecaster Joe Ramey said. “We were counting on cold air. All models indicated it would drop into New Mexico Saturday night, introducing cold air into the southern valleys of Colorado. That didn’t push much further south than the San Juan Mountains. It sat from Ouray to Montrose, which got 1 to 2 feet.”
The weather service lifted the winter storm warning from Durango southward after forecasters saw how the storm was tracking.
The icy roads caused problems throughout the day.
The city of Durango closed the front hill on East Eighth Avenue to Fort Lewis College late afternoon Monday.
School was in session Monday for Durango School District 9-R students, but bus routes DW1 and AV2 were canceled in the morning, and more delays were expected. Route DW1 ran Monday afternoon, but AV2 and the already scheduled cancellation SS3 did not, said 9-R spokeswoman Julie Popp.
La Plata County offices did not open until 10 a.m. Monday.
Durango Police Sgt. Bobby Taylor reported one fender-bender Monday morning near Riverview Elementary, and a tow truck driver said early in the day that he had recovered about eight vehicles that slid off roads in the region since Sunday night.
Snow accumulation on traffic signals on U.S. Highway 550 between Three Springs and the U.S. Highway 160 intersection near the DoubleTree hotel also slowed northbound drivers Monday afternoon. Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Nancy Shanks said CDOT crews were monitoring the situation.
“Signals in the northbound direction are getting covered in snow because of the way the wind is blowing,” she said.
National Weather Service forecaster Dennis Phillips said the wet mixture turned to heavier snow around 5 a.m. Monday.
“The chance of heavier snow is gone,” he said. “There may be another 1 to 3 inches.”
Areas north of town were hit harder. Haviland Lake received about 10 inches, Coal Bank Pass received 34 inches and Molas Pass received 29. Chain law restrictions were in place on both passes, as well as Wolf Creek Pass and numerous other passes in Colorado. Red Mountain Pass closed about 7 p.m. Sunday because of adverse weather conditions and remained closed Monday night. Wolf Creek, Coal Bank and Molas passes were reporting snow, icy and snow-packed conditions Monday night.
The storm was good news for Purgatory Resort. The ski area reported 30 inches in the past 24 hours, 35 inches in the past 48 hours, and it was still coming down Monday afternoon. Purgatory had a base depth of 72 inches as of Monday afternoon.
Wolf Creek Ski Area also celebrated, with 35 inches in the previous 48 hours and a midway depth of 103 inches.
Meanwhile, it’s a good thing the Denver Broncos plane took off for San Francisco on Sunday.
This weather system that blew in from California is leaving air travelers stranded and was dumping steady snow on the Denver area Monday in what is expected to be the Front Range’s first big snowstorm of the season.
About a third of the flights at the Denver International Airport were canceled before the snow picked up around midday. Up to about a foot of powder could fall along Colorado’s heavily populated Front Range by the time the storm moves out Tuesday and across the Plains.
The same system also brought about a foot of record-breaking snow to Lake Tahoe-area ski resorts, along with rain and cool weather to other parts of Nevada. It caused a pileup on Interstate 80 on Sunday near the Nevada-California line.
In Utah, about a foot of snow has fallen in the southern part of the state and on the ski resorts in the mountains east of Salt Lake City.
[email protected]. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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