A strong cold-front will be pushed through Colorado by a jet-streak early Sunday morning to bring huge changes to the area for the back half of the weekend. After possibly setting record highs on Saturday, Sunday will be 30-40° colder for many areas. The rapid drop in temps, developing strong wind gusts and expected bursts of snow may produce a flash freeze over the higher terrain of the Pikes Peak Region and the Palmer Divide that may bring icy roads for a time early in the day.
PIKES PEAK REGION TRAVEL CHANGES
A QUICK-MOVING STORM
The storm will literally blast into the area on Sunday with the cold front heading from north to south. Snow will accompany the front and continue behind it for about 6 to 7 hours before quickly ending from north to south in the late morning and early afternoon. Use the arrows below to swipe through a selection of times on Sunday…showing the quick movement of the storm.
Wind gusts behind the front will be strongest over the Palmer Divide across Douglas, Elbert, and northern El Paso County where gusts between 40-60mph are possible between 4am-10am Sunday.
SUNDAY SNOW - EXPECTED AMOUNTS VS MEASURED AMOUNTS VS POTENTIAL AMOUNTS
The farther north you are, the more organized and widespread the snow will be, so I’m more confident that you’ll get some snow. The farther south you are, the more likely snow is to come in the form of scattered showers, having a more hit and miss, thunderstorm type feel to it with localized bursts bringing the best chance of the grass turning white for a bit before melting pretty fast as the snow rates drop off. Use the arrows to manually advance through the different images and different snow amounts for different areas.
The other challenge with the storm for the weekend is recent warmth and that warmth melting the initial snow on contact and helping snow to compact as the cooler surfaces hold it. The short of the long is that you probably aren’t going to measure how much actually fell, even over the higher terrain of the Pikes Peak Region. Keep that in mind. It’s also this ground warmth that has me concerned about a flash freeze because if the first hour or two of snow on the Palmer Divide and the slopes of Pikes Peak is being melted and the roads are wet, the rapidly falling temps and wind may help to freeze the road in an instant at some point.
