Three waves of snow could hit Colorado in upcoming days – but warmer temps are expected, too
Mapping from Pivotal Weather shows that several rounds of snow could hit Colorado over upcoming days – that said, it’s also a time of the year when temperature tends to be a key factor in how much snow actually sticks and accumulates, so keep that in mind.
Per Pivotal Weather mapping, a first chance of snow involves northern Colorado on Friday, May 22. Don’t expect much – a couple inches, but this could cause some roads to get a little slick. Following that, there’s a chance southwest Colorado gets a bit of snow between May 25 and May 26 – again, not much… about three inches in higher terrain.
A more significant wave of snow could then land between May 29 and June 1, hitting southwest, central, and northern Colorado mountain ranges. At this point, the snowfall total of all three waves could reach about 16 inches in the area of Rocky Mountain National Park and about 13 just north of I-70 through Summit County. The Flat Tops could see similar peak totals in the range of 13 inches from now through then, with about seven total inches in the southwest.
As was noted, it should be kept in mind that this is springtime snow when accumulation doesn’t really stack up in most cases. It’s likely most of this snow will be melting off quickly, perhaps with exception of some higher elevation peaks that get hit the hardest. The only significant impact will likely be when it comes to hiking trails in alpine terrain – slick conditions can be expected.
At the statewide level, Colorado’s snowpack is at about 17 percent of the norm for the date. While this is above record-lows, it’s still on par with what’s normal for the second week of June. All USDA projections indicate that snowpack should be pretty much gone on Colorado’s peaks by June 5 – the norm is around June 20.
According to the National Weather Service, wetter-than-normal conditions are expected to be present in Colorado through at least June 12, accompanied by warmer-than-normal temps.
Explore more mapping from Pivotal Weather here.
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