Light snowstorms to move through Summit County Wednesday night and this weekend

The weather in Summit County has felt more like winter for the past few weeks, but while snowfall is forecast again this week, only light amounts are expected. National Weather Service meteorologist Russell Danielson reported that a storm Wednesday night will bring 1-2 inches of snow in town to Summit County.
Temperatures soared above 40 degrees throughout Summit County on Tuesday, but Danielson said a cold front would come through Tuesday night, setting up for a small storm on Wednesday. He said the majority of snow would fall Wednesday night.
“It’s looking like the east side of Summit County by the Continental Divide maybe (will get) 2-4 inches up on the ridges there, but down in Dillon, Silverthorne, all that area, maybe just 1 or 2 inches. So not a terribly big event,” Danielson said.
Danielson said that high temperatures will be in the low 30s in town on Wednesday and Thursday and would cool to the upper 20s on Friday. According to the National Weather Service’s forecast for Frisco, overnight lows from Wednesday through Friday will range from 7-10 degrees Fahrenheit.
“We may start seeing some small chances for snow late Friday into Saturday and then Sunday. It doesn’t look like a major system, but it may be lightly snowing for a decent amount of that time, especially on the mountains,” Danielson said. “We were hoping one of these (storms) might be a bigger snow producer, but it doesn’t look like that at the moment.”
Open Snow meteorologist Sam Collentine wrote in his forecast for Breckenridge that the Wednesday night storm will favor the foothills west of Denver and will not be ideal for Breckenridge. He said the storm will likely only bring the mountain 1-3 inches of accumulation.
Despite snow accumulation not living up to expectations, the National Weather Service put out a hazardous weather outlook for wind and snow. The report said that Tuesday night would bring gusty westerly winds, and gusts could approach 70 miles per hour over the high mountain passes. Travel impacts associated with the Wednesday storm will affect the Wednesday evening to Thursday morning commute, the outlook said.
The Colorado Avalanche Information Center has lowered avalanche risk to moderate below, near and above tree line for Tuesday and Wednesday in Vail and Summit County. While the avalanche risk was higher earlier this month, the center still cautioned backcountry users that recreators can still trigger large avalanches, with the most “suspect slopes” being those that face an easterly direction and are located near a ridgetop.
The summary also noted that warm temperatures on Tuesday mean that snow on sunny slopes will warm up and recreators may see small, loose avalanches dribble out of rocks that should pose little hazard.

Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism
As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.
Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.
Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.