{"id":122857,"date":"2013-11-25T23:51:35","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T06:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sierra-cement-visits-four-corners-area\/"},"modified":"2013-11-25T23:51:35","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T06:51:35","slug":"sierra-cement-visits-four-corners-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sierra-cement-visits-four-corners-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Sierra cement visits Four Corners area"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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SHAUN STANLEY\/Durango Herald<br><br>Bryon Wilson, a member of the U.S. Freestyle Mogul Team, sails off a<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado snow enthusiasts love their fluffy white \u201ccold-smoke\u201d powder, but how about some of that \u201cSierra cement?\u201d<\/p>\n

A slow-moving storm system crept its way over the Southwest during the last week, dropping dense and damp snow all over surrounding mountains, while it rained buckets around Durango and outlying communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just had a great moisture feed, straight from the south,\u201d said National Weather Service meteorologist Denni s Phillips in Grand Junction. \u201cIt was really heavy, wet snow with a lot of good moisture in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the storm was slow to deliver to Durango, but snow did accumulate up to a few inches by Sunday.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the saturated snow was the cause of several power outages, one leaving 1,300 people and an entire Durango Mountain Resort without electricity for three hours. Wet snow commonly disrupts power lines in northern La Plata County, according to La Plata Electric Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have one forecaster refer to it as Sierra cement,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cHe lived out West for a while, and this is the kind of snow they would get in the Sierra Nevadas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phillips described the system as complex, with arctic air moving around in Colorado and dropping into southeastern Utah blanketing desert red-sandstone formations in layers of white.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was odd to see snow in places like Natural Bridges (National Monument), but it stayed rain in Durango and Cortez and even farther north,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Phillips did say the surrounding higher elevations received good snow accumulations.<\/p>\n

Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort has reported 29 inches since Wednesday with snow still falling Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinter has certainly arrived,\u201d said Kim Oyler, director of communications for DMR. She said the resort\u2019s goal is to have as much of the front side of the mountain open as possible on opening day Friday.<\/p>\n

Wolf Creek Ski Area reported 34 inches out of the storm.<\/p>\n

Seven avalanches were observed in the San Juan Mountains, from Red Mountain to Wolf Creek Pass, and avalanche danger has raised to Level 3 on the Colorado Avalanche Information Center\u2019s website Sunday afternoon, advising travelers and recreationists to have heightened awareness and be extremely cautious.<\/p>\n

Crews were blasting for avalanche control between Silverton and Red Mountain Pass near mile marker 82 on U.S. Highway 550, and the Colorado Department of Transportation temporarily enforced chain laws Sunday on Lizard Head, Coal Bank and Wolf Creek passes.<\/p>\n

The NWS is calling for sunny skies beginning today and temperatures warming through the week.<\/p>\n

bmathis@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durango finally gets its snowfall \u2013 the wet kind<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":122858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,88],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-122857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-weather-news"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122857"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=122857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}