{"id":14110,"date":"2026-01-05T20:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T03:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/snow-returns-to-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:44:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:44:00","slug":"snow-returns-to-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/snow-returns-to-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Snow returns to Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Snow
Snow is expected to return to the San Juan Mountains on Christmas Eve. Southwest Colorado has experienced warm and dry conditions heading into winter. That is not unusual; forecasters say there is still time for the snowpack to catch up to healthy levels. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Light snow that moved through Durango on Monday morning was the first of two storms expected to affect Southwest Colorado this week, according to the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

The second storm, expected to arrive late Wednesday, could bring a bit more snow to Durango and other low-lying areas, with roughly 3 to 6 inches in the mountains, said Tom Renwick of the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like a one-two punch,\u201d Renwick said. \u201cUnfortunately, the best energy \u2013 the best moisture \u2013 is all focused to the north. This is kind of what\u2019s been happening a lot of the winter in the San Juans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colder temperatures Wednesday will allow snow to fall at lower elevations than typical for this winter, he said.<\/p>\n

As of Tuesday morning, OpenSnow forecasts showed many Southwest Colorado ski areas will receive a dose of fresh snow.<\/p>\n

Purgatory Resort<\/a>, which recently opened terrain on Chair 8 with powdery conditions, is calling for 5 inches. Wolf Creek<\/a>, which is 100% open, may see 8 inches, and Silverton <\/a>could get 4 inches by the time this week\u2019s storm ends.<\/p>\n

After the second storm wraps up, conditions are expected to turn warm and dry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings do change, but once this system moves through early Friday, it looks like temperatures go back up to four to five degrees above where they should be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He does not expect the snow to create significant travel hazards other than in the mountains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing I would really be concerned about is going over the passes,\u201d Renwick said. \u201cDown low in Durango, the temperatures are going to be so warm \u2013 even with that colder air moving in \u2013 and you have the sun hitting the pavement. It\u2019ll be a little snowy, icy, slushy to start with, and then probably just become wet as the day goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n

To stay up to date with road conditions and closures, visit cotrip.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Mountains could see several inches; dry, warm weather to follow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,994,414,88],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-14110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-trueanthem","tag-weather","tag-weather-news"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110","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=14110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19333,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110\/revisions\/19333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14110"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=14110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}