Another blast of arctic weather blew down through Colorado’s Front Range and mountains Saturday, producing a slew of traffic accidents, road closures and sub-zero temperatures.
Ski areas reported 48-hour accumulations of as much as 16 inches of fresh powder. The storm system is expected to dissipate by Sunday morning, but not before leaving 1 to 4 inches of snow throughout metro Denver.
“We’ve been sitting in a pattern where these systems keep coming down from the north and hitting us,” said Frank Cooper, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder.
A series of winter-storm warnings and weather advisories Saturday made the Weather Service’s Colorado map look like a colorful mosaic, but most of the warnings were scheduled to expire Saturday evening.
Sunday’s high temperatures in Denver are expected to reach the upper 20s, with lows Sunday night forecast at 5 to 9 degrees.
Winter Park opened for the season on Saturday with a welcome blanket of powder to supplement a limited man-made base. The resort reported 39 inches of new snow from Monday through Saturday afternoon.
“A powder day for opening day on Nov. 15 is better than anybody could have expected,” said Winter Park communications director Steve Hurlbert, who noted that the resort had been forced to postpone its original scheduled opening on Wednesday because of sparse snowpack.
“We figured that it would be better to open well than to open quickly,” he said.
Loveland Ski Area reported 13 inches of new snow overnight Friday and through Saturday, with more expected Saturday night.
“It’s like a winter wonderland up here,” said spokesman Duncan Maxwell. “It’s coming down hard.”
U.S. 6 over Loveland Pass was closed in both directions Saturday afternoon and for the rest of the night because of snowy conditions.
Westbound Interstate 70 near Vail was shut down for a portion of Saturday afternoon because of an accident.
A multicar collision Saturday afternoon on northbound Interstate 25 near University Boulevard in Denver left traffic at a standstill.
The temperature at Denver International Airport reached a high of 18 degrees early Saturday before falling the rest of the day. The 18 degrees matched the record low high for the date of Nov. 15, set in 1909.
Highs in Denver are expected to reach 30 degrees Monday and the 40s on Tuesday through Friday.
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948, sraabe@denverpost.com or twitter.com/steveraabedp
Update: November 17, 2014 at 3:50 p.m.: This article has been updated to correctly identify the people in the Boulder snowboarding photo at the top of the article. The people in the article are Kiran Burge, left, and Ian Fleming.
