First major snowstorm in Colorado mountains cuts power in 45,000 high country homes

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Colorado is bracing itself for the first serious snowstorm of the coming winter season.

The first major snowstorm of the season came in force overnight Sunday, battering the mountains with heavy snow that clogged traffic, cancelled school and left more than 10,000 high country homes without power into Monday morning.

The National Weather Service issued storm warnings and advisories for most of the central and northern Colorado mountains starting on Sunday and lasting through Monday at midnight.

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Early snowfall disrupts power and traffic in Colorado mountains. Summit Cove, Oct. 2.

The outages began at around 8 p.m. on Sunday night and affected nearly 45,000 homes in the mountain region. Roughly half of those lasted less than five minutes, but as of 11 a.m. there were still more than 10,000 homes without power.

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A lot of snow has accumulated in in Winter Park, Colorado.

The early snowfall also disrupted trafic on I-70:

Simultaneous closures at major choke points on Interstate 70 at the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel and Vail Pass left drivers marooned in Georgetown and at a shelter in Vail, which soon filled to capacity.

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Snowfall intensity increased again over the N/Cent Mtns. Heaviest snowfall above 9000ft & west slopes. Twitter

There was no serious injury or fatality crashes in the Summit County or Vail Pass area.

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Winter rolled like a BANG in Colorado! Twitter

The timing of the storm is not wholly unprecedented, but it was unique in that it lingered over Summit and Eagle counties all night, maximizing accumulations here.

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via Twitter

It was a very slow-moving snowstorm. What’s special was the jet stream wasn’t moving much, and some areas were getting one to two inches per hour last night.

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4 Comments

  1. This occurrence was more normal than you imply.
    The rockies get snow, sometimes hundreds of inches per year.
    Interesting, but not unusual.
    It’s not like the Puertorican politicians who have blockaded ports to prevent the distribution of food and fuel … apparently so they can justify telling lies about Trump & the federal disaster response.

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