{"id":23488,"date":"2025-02-14T18:44:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T01:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/winter-storm-delivers-a-big-dose-of-precipitation-on-cortez-area\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:37:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:37:30","slug":"winter-storm-delivers-a-big-dose-of-precipitation-on-cortez-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/winter-storm-delivers-a-big-dose-of-precipitation-on-cortez-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter storm delivers a big dose of precipitation on Cortez area"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Mancos River on Feb. 14. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the winter storm we\u2019ve been waiting for, and it\u2019s not over yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s expected to continue all day,\u201d National Weather Service weather watcher Jim Andrus said Friday. \u201cIt sure blew the forecast to smithereens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The weather came in Thursday night with a mix of rain and snow; snow started at 9 p.m. in Cortez, after starting with drizzle in Towaoc about 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

By 8 a.m. Friday, Andrus had measured 3.2 inches of snowfall. \u201cThere\u2019s probably another inch by 10 a.m.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As of 11 a.m., more than 1,200 people are out of power, according to Empire Electric\u2019s Outage Map. <\/a><\/p>\n

\"There\u2019s
There\u2019s a median of snow on Main Street in Mancos. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A car buried in snow Friday at the historic Bauer House in Mancos. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

And there\u2019s avalanche warnings from Craig to the New Mexico border, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cNew
\u201cNew snow and strong winds will create very dangerous avalanche conditions starting Thursday night and lasting through Saturday,\u201d the Colorado Avalanche Information Center warns.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cNew snow and strong winds will create very dangerous avalanche conditions starting Thursday night and lasting through Saturday,\u201d the Colorado Avalanche Information Center warns.<\/p>\n

For much of the San Juan Mountains, a \u201chigh\u201d avalanche warning is in effect. As more snow accumulates, avalanche danger will \u201crise rapidly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in town, the snow continued to fall steadily through the morning with no wind to disrupt its dance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no wind blowing it off the trees,\u201d Andrus said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a heavy snow; it might break some limbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

People are out shoveling their driveways and sidewalks, and can\u2019t keep up with the accumulation; as soon as a path was cleared, it was covered again.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for the Upper Dolores Basin in effect until noon Friday, but with a 50% chance of snowfall through the evening. The storm was expected to pass Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

There was a total of 1.19 inches of total precipitation, in terms of liquid water equivalence.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s eight times the amount recorded in all of January, which had a scant 0.15 inches. Total snowfall last month was 2.4 inches, 30% of the monthly normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure glad to see something put a dent in this winter drought we\u2019re having,\u201d said Andrus.<\/p>\n

The monthly average precipitation for February is 0.96 inches, a number we exceeded in two days\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

\u201cA word to the wise? Drive carefully. Walk carefully, too,\u201d Andrus said. \u201cAnd put a shovel in your trunk \u2013 you might need it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12 hours, Cortez area gets six times more precipitation than in all of January, and there\u2019s avalanche warnings from Craig to the New Mexico border<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,83,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23488","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=23488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78145,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23488\/revisions\/78145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23488"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}