{"id":41879,"date":"2022-03-04T02:43:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T09:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/storm-expected-to-deliver-mild-snow-amid-unseasonably-warm-weather\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:03:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:03:57","slug":"storm-expected-to-deliver-mild-snow-amid-unseasonably-warm-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/storm-expected-to-deliver-mild-snow-amid-unseasonably-warm-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"Storm expected to deliver mild snow amid unseasonably warm weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Area
Area roads and highways were a combination of snow, slush,] and ice Wednesday morning thanks to an overnight snowstorm. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A brief spell of winter weather beginning Friday will dampen this week\u2019s unseasonably warm weather in Southwest Colorado, according to the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

Lower temperatures also are expected, but not low enough for much snow to accumulate at lower elevations.<\/p>\n

Southwest Colorado has seen unseasonably warm weather this week. The high was 66 degrees Thursday in Cortez \u2013 the second-highest temperature for the day after a 71-degree record set on March 3, 2009, according to National Weather Service climate data. <\/a><\/p>\n

Wednesday, the high in Cortez was 62 degrees \u2013 only 3 degrees off from the record of 65 degrees in 2008, said Jim Andrus, a weather watcher for NWS in Cortez.<\/p>\n

Cortez is forecast to receive 1 to 3 inches of snow, and Durango is projected to receive 2 to 4 inches. Foothills near Bayfield could accrue up to 5 inches, said Mark Miller, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

At lower elevations, roads might be wet, Miller said.<\/p>\n

A winter weather advisory issued Thursday afternoon called for 6 to 12 inches of snow at elevations above 9,000 feet in the southwest San Juan Mountains, with patchy blowing snow and winds of up to 35 mph that could impair travel.<\/p>\n

With a high of 45 degrees on Saturday, snow will likely be wet, Andrus said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like it\u2019ll be a busy weekend here for precipitation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, the storm won\u2019t come close to measuring up to the late-February storm, which dropped 6 to 10 inches of snow in Cortez and higher amounts at increasing elevations, with more than 40 inches at Wolf Creek Pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a sneak preview of spring,\u201d Andrus said.<\/p>\n

The first day of meteorological spring was Monday, and with the change in seasons comes warmer systems, Miller said. Meteorologists define the four seasons in three-month periods, in part to make record-keeping easier.<\/p>\n

There is \u201cnot a whole lot of cold air to work with \u2013 not that it won\u2019t snow, it will,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Telluride is expected to receive 6 to 12 inches of snow. Red Mountain Pass could get 10 to 20 inches, and Wolf Creek Pass, 1 to 2 feet.<\/p>\n

The system will not be seamless, but rather three-pronged in its development. It will move through the area beginning Friday and ending Sunday night, Miller said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a lot of stops and starts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Snowpack is at 96% of average, according to the latest SNOTEL data measuring precipitation in the Dolores River Basin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

record-high temperatures; storm could dump up to 2 feet in mountains <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,167,29,1164,414,88],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-newsletter","tag-snow","tag-weather","tag-weather-news"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41879","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=41879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85132,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41879\/revisions\/85132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41879"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}