{"id":41837,"date":"2022-03-06T20:13:20","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T03:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/low-pressure-storm-brings-6-9-inches-of-snow-to-parts-of-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:03:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:03:51","slug":"low-pressure-storm-brings-6-9-inches-of-snow-to-parts-of-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/low-pressure-storm-brings-6-9-inches-of-snow-to-parts-of-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Low-pressure storm brings 6-9 inches of snow to parts of Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Fresh
Fresh snow from a low-pressure system left more than a foot of snow in some high elevations of the San Juan Mountains and about a half foot in lower elevation of Southwest Colorado on Sunday morning. (Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A low-pressure storm dumped at least a half foot of snow on lower-elevation towns and cities Sunday in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that low, that\u2019s creating a lot of instability, so you have convection,\u201d said meteorologist David Byers with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. \u201cThere\u2019s an upward lift with that low pressure that causes showers, and that can put down some pretty heavy snow with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byers said the system should be out of the area by mid- to late-afternoon Sunday.<\/p>\n

The storm brought about 6 inches of snow to Durango as of Sunday morning, Byers said.<\/p>\n

As of 4 a.m. Sunday, the Colorado Department of Transportation snowplow crews reported up to 9 inches at Coal Bank, Molas and Red Mountain passes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also getting reports of 6 to 9 inches on Lizard Head Pass and Wolf Creek,\u201d said CDOT spokeswoman Lisa Schwantes. \u201cOur whole southwest region is getting hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byers said more weather is expected Monday morning, but only a half inch of snow is expected in lower elevations, and about 3 inches in the mountains.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you do not have to get out in these types of conditions, and you have the option of staying home and postponing travel, today is a wise day to do that,\u201d Schwantes said. \u201cIf you have the advantage of working from home, there is more weather coming, and tomorrow (Monday) morning is a perfect time to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwantes said those looking to go backcountry skiing or snowshoeing should be mindful of where they park along the roadways so that CDOT plows don\u2019t hit parked cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that they\u2019re trying to take advantage of the great conditions, but our snowplows are really trying to keep the roadway clear, and the last thing we want is to plow someone into the side of the road,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Although she hasn\u2019t heard of any closures, Schwantes said drivers should be prepared for maintenance delays on U.S. highways 550 and 160.<\/p>\n

Other than some delays early in the morning as a result of de-icing and snow removal, the Durango-La-Plata County Airport reported few impacts from the storm.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally the biggest impacts at the moment are that as we see squalls come through, visibility is dropping at times and causing some challenges with inbound activity,\u201d said airport Director of Aviation Tony Vicari.<\/p>\n

Because of low visibility Sunday morning, Vicari said two United Airlines flights were diverted to Albuquerque, but were scheduled to arrive Sunday afternoon in Durango.<\/p>\n

Hesperus Ski area reported about 14 inches of fresh snow in the last 24 hours. Purgatory Resort reported 9 inches.<\/p>\n

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

Another small blast of moisture expected early Monday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[576,950,915,28,866,712,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-department-of-transportation","tag-durango","tag-durango-la-plata-county-airport","tag-headlines","tag-hesperus","tag-purgatory","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41837","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=41837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85118,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41837\/revisions\/85118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41837"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}