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| Aftermath of the big snow over the past few days in North Colorado Springs, Colorado. Photo by Matthew Soifer via Facebook. |
Widespread travel disruptions hit areas Thursday from Albuquerque to Denver and beyond. Snow totals were impressive to say the least.
Fort Garland, Colorado reported 53 inches Trinidad, Colorado came in with 44 inches. Beulah, Colorado and Angel Fire, New Mexico had 40 inches.
The interesting thing is some of the biggest snow totals were out in the High Plains east and south of Colorado Springs and Denver, and not necessarily so much in the mountains.
Colorado Springs had at least 20 inches.
Denver's 20 inches of snow was their 11th biggest snowstorm on record and third biggest in November.
Luckily, the snow totals in the cities situated in some of relatively lower elevations sound worse than they are. The snowfall was spread over several days
The still-warm ground melted some of the snow from below. The snow in Denver fell over the course of five days and the snow depth peaked at 13 inches. The multi-day duration was mostly because this was really two storms in one.
The snow depth in Colorado Springs never really got deeper than eight inches.
However the snow did manage to pile up on elevated surfaces like roofs, and trees and sheds, causing some damage.
The drawback to having the snow fall over several days is that flight delays and cancellations really ramped up at Denver Airport. It has since stopped snowing, so the airports in the region are clearing the backlog of flights.
New Mexico's governor declared a state of emergency Thursday for much of the northern part of the state as the early season wet snowstorm cut power from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, cutting power to thousands of people.
The leaves were still on the trees in many areas, which made the situation much worse. The snow clung to the leaves, pulling down trees and branches that might otherwise have withstood the snow had the trees been winter bare.
At least 100 vehicles were reported stranded on highways in northeastern New Mexico, where a blizzard warning was in effect until 5 p.m. Friday.
The snowstorm followed what had been up to now an unusually warm autumn in Colorado, which means that, like in New Mexico, some of the leaves are still on the trees. Especially in urban and suburban areas of Denver and other areas outside the mountains.
That contributed to a bunch of power outages that are now being repaired. Electricity appeared to be almost completely restored in Colorado and in New Mexico as of Sunday morning.
The storm has departed Colorado. The forecast for cities like Denver and Colorado is for sunshine the entire week with highs in the 50s to near 60, so the snow should melt pretty fast.
As a parting shot, the storm's cold front eventually grabbed some moisture from dying former Hurricane Rafael in the Gulf of Mexico. That ended up dumping torrential rains and creating lots of flash flooding in Louisiana this weekend.
The storm system that caused the Colorado snow and contributed to the Louisiana flood is the same one that is coming through the Northeast with some needed rain on Monday.
However, the storm is now much, much weaker than it was and still getting weaker. So the Northeast won't get all that much rain out of this system.
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