If you are driving I-70 this weekend, today is not the day to start. The National Weather Service has a Winter Weather Advisory active right now for Colorado’s mountain passes and a Freeze Warning covering the entire Front Range urban corridor and northeast plains tonight through Saturday morning. The storm clears Saturday, but the damage to roads and vegetation will already be done.
What makes this one worth paying attention to is not the snow totals in the mountains. It is the freeze behind it. Denver was in the upper 70s yesterday. Tonight, lows across the Front Range will fall to 18 to 24 degrees. That is more than 50 degrees in under 36 hours, and anyone who has already turned on their sprinkler system is about to find out the hard way.
The Storm
The cold front that hit Wyoming this week crossed the Colorado border overnight. NWS Boulder confirmed it in their Area Forecast Discussion issued at 5:27 AM today: a spring storm moving in with snow showers and a much colder air mass, with a hard freeze expected across the plains Friday night.
Snow is already developing in the mountains this morning and spreading to lower elevations through the day. Denver’s forecast high today is in the low 40s with an 80 percent chance of snow showers. The city has not seen measurable snow since March 15. The snow at lower elevations will be light and mostly wet, but the main concern is what happens to wet roads when temperatures crash into the teens tonight…