{"id":48617,"date":"2021-02-14T18:48:48","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T01:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-catching-up-on-snowfall\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:43:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:43:32","slug":"southwest-colorado-catching-up-on-snowfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-catching-up-on-snowfall\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Colorado catching up on snowfall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"About
About 8 inches of snow fell overnight in Durango, and another inch could accumulate Sunday before the latest snowstorm departs Southwest Colorado.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/The Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Snow is expected to ease throughout the day Sunday, but an unsettled weather pattern looks to bring more snow to Southwest Colorado later this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not going to be much more today. It\u2019s going to be pretty light. Things are going to start winding down throughout the day as the system exits the area, said Megan Stackhouse, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About 8 inches fell overnight in Durango, with perhaps another inch to come Sunday. The San Juan Mountains could get 4 additional inches.<\/p>\n

At 7 a.m., Vallecito reported 18 inches of snow, a deeper accumulation than Silverton, which reported 4.1 inches. Other snowfall accumulations reported to the weather service included 11 inches in Trimble, 10.8 inches at Rockwood, 10.5 inches in Pagosa Springs and 10 inches east of Dolores.<\/p>\n

As of 5 a.m., Purgatory Resort reported 9 inches of snow in the past 24 hours. Wolf Creek Ski Area reported 22 inches in the past 24 hours, and Telluride Ski Area reported 4 inches of snow in the past 24 hours.<\/p>\n

John Palmer, Colorado Department of Transportation deputy superintendent of maintenance, said crews were on avalanche maintenance on Wolf Creek Pass. The pass was closed from 6 a.m. to 7:15 a.m. Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve received a significant amount of snow in the high country. That means we\u2019ll be keeping a close eye on the avalanche slide paths that could potentially fall on the highways. Avalanche control missions may be likely in the next few days. These safety closures typically last about an hour or two. But it is also not unheard of for our avalanche control work to take half a day,\u201d Palmer said<\/p>\n

Anyone traveling over mountain passes should check the CDOT COtrip.org<\/a> map to see if any closure alerts posted.<\/p>\n

Jim Andrus, a weather watcher in Cortez, more than 7.6 inches had fallen as of 9 a.m. and light snow was still falling at 11:30 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a really significant change in our weather pattern. We\u2019re doing some catching up now. The dry pattern ended about the middle of January, and suddenly we started getting some good amounts of precipitation, he said.<\/p>\n

Cortez is now at 101% of the average snowfall for February. Year-to-date, Andrus reported Cortez is at 97% of average snowfall for the year, with 27.7 inches.<\/p>\n

The Natural Resources Conservation Service\u2019s Snotel reported Southwest Colorado river basins are at 86% of total snowpack compared with the 30-year average.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center is reporting the avalanche risk as \u201cconsiderable\u201d in the San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n

Stackhouse said another snowstorm is expected hit Southwest Colorado Monday night and Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not being as strong as this system. But it\u2019s plenty cold compared to last time, when we had that warm air out ahead of it. So it looks more promising to start out as snow for all elevations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Stackhouse said lower elevations along the U.S. Highway 160 corridor could expect a few inches of snow, and the mountains could expect 6 to 8 inches of accumulation before the storm departs Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a very unsettled pattern. So it\u2019s looking like we\u2019re gonna have a couple of disturbances dropping in from the Pacific Northwest every few days. But its\u2019 too early to tell where exactly those waves are going to go at this point. But either way, we\u2019re in a very unsettled pattern, she said.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Travel information<\/h4>\n

The Colorado Department of Transportation reminds motorists to check for updated weather information:
\n Visit
\n www.cotrip.org<\/a>
\n for real-time road conditions, highway closures, average speeds, photos, live cameras streaming traffic, trucking information and more.
\n Call 511 to listen to recorded information about road conditions, projected trip travel times and trucker information.
\n Receive free email\/text alerts at
\n www.codot.gov\/travel<\/a>
\n ; choose from a list of subscription options at the \u201cget connected\u201d tab.
\n Follow @coloradodot on Twitter for traveler information and other news.
\n Like CDOT at
\n www.facebook.com\/coloradodot<\/a>
\n to receive news and traveler information.
\n Visit
\n www.codot.gov\/travel\/winter-driving<\/a>
\n to get information about road conditions, what to keep in a vehicle during the winter, how to safely pass a snowplow, commercial-vehicle requirements, seasonal closures, snow removal and avalanche control.
\n Herald Staff<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

receives about 8 inches; Vallecito gets 18<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13,28,29,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48617","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=48617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87423,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48617\/revisions\/87423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48617"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}