Heavy Snow — C & Se Park County, Colorado

2016-04-15 to 2016-04-17 · C & Se Park County, Colorado

Event narrative

Storm totals included 16 inches in Fairplay.

Wider weather episode

A powerful spring snowstorm brought heavy, wet snow to areas in and near the Front Range Foothills and Palmer Divide. Storm totals generally ranged from 2 to 4 feet in the Foothills with 1 to 2 feet across the Mountains and Palmer Divide. Front Range Urban Corridor had amounts ranging from 6 to 20 inches...with highest totals across the western and southern suburbs. Denver International Airport flight cancellations totaled 852, almost all on the 16th. Accumulating snow on trees resulted in broken tree limbs and scattered power outages. Over 5,000 customers were without power on the 16th, and over 2,000 on the 17th. Xcel Energy brought in extra crews from surrounding states to help restore power and minimize outage times through the storm. Numerous but mostly temporary road closures from 1 to 5 hours occurred throughout the storm. This included portions of I-70, Highways 86 and 24 west of Limon, Highway 103 Idaho Springs to Evergreen, Highway 287 northwest of Fort Collins to the Wyoming border, Highway 85 from Nunn, CO to the Wyoming border, and Highway 119 through Black Hawk.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 630302. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.