Coloradans have waited patiently to see snow across much of the Front Range, and soon that could arrive.
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After a very dry fall across the state, some wet weather is forecast to bring an end to that dry stretch on Thursday and into Friday. The mix of rain and potential snow is significant because it will be one of the latest snowfalls to kick off the season in Denver on record.
“The normal for snowfall (in Denver) is in the middle of October,” said Russell Danielson, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service (NWS) in Boulder. “We pretty much had 150 years of weather data … so that's quite unusual, for sure.”
Topping the list of the latest first snows of the season will depend on when the snow actually falls. The NWS recorded the current latest snowfall on Dec. 10, 2021. The runner-up is Nov. 21, 1934. So the state has the chance to either tie that record this week or fall one day short. It just depends on whether snow actually falls in Denver.
The recent weather patterns are not typical of such persistent dry conditions across the state, but weather officials predict that could soon change.
“We've just been in this kind of this, what we call a ridge or high pressure, a loft over the Western U.S. for the majority of the fall that has led to such warm and dry conditions,” said Danielson. “We finally are starting to see that pattern shift next week, really towards colder and potentially wetter.”
Russ Schumacher, the director of the Colorado Climate Center and Colorado's state climatologist, has also been monitoring the situation and says this fall appears to be the third-lowest snowpack on record. As mentioned earlier, 2021 topped the list of the latest snowfall in Denver, but that year is also notorious for the millions of people living along the I-25 corridor.
“It had the latest first snow, very, very warm and dry weather through the fall into the winter, and then we had the Marshall Fire, because everything was, you know, we had everything so dry,” said Schumacher.
The Marshall Fire burned from Dec. 30, 2021, until Jan. 1, 2022. More than 1,000 structures, many of them homes, were destroyed.
While this may raise concerns, Schumacher says there is still plenty of winter ahead to make a difference.
“It hasn't really snowed or even rained much of anywhere along the Front Range yet this year,” said Schumacher. “So it's quite late for that. But at the same time, we still have a long winter ahead, and it looks like this week, we'll have a storm come in that will finally bring some moisture to the Front Range and Eastern Plains.”
It’s not just Denver and the Front Range that have been quiet. Colorado’s mountains are also lagging behind on snow. The lack of winter weather has created a quiet start to ski season. Plus, snowpack in the mountains is also essential for the state’s water supply. So in many ways, significant snowfall in the mountains is a higher priority.
“We can hope that this year flips that script around, where we got a slow start, and then maybe it gets a little bit more active,” said Schumacher. “Certainly, the pattern coming up for the next couple of weeks looks a lot more active than the last month has been. We will probably see repeated periods of snow and probably some pretty cold weather later on next week as well. So the mountains will certainly get snow in this wetter pattern.”
