About 36 hours after the snowstorm started, the final flakes are fluttering across Colorado’s Front Range and high plains.
“Conditions will gradually improve this morning but it will take some time to dig out of this major winter storm,” the National Weather Service wrote in a statement early Friday.
Many schools and businesses remained shuttered Friday, including the University of Colorado at Boulder.
At the height of the storm, a major portion of Interstate 70 was closed west of Denver. Thoroughfares such as Route 6 through Loveland Pass remained shut down Friday morning. Following hundreds of flight cancellations Thursday, residual delays are expected at Denver International Airport on Friday.
Tens of thousands also lost power, with about 15,000 still in the dark early Friday, according to online tracker poweroutage.us.
With the snow ending and temperatures rising Friday, road conditions were expected to gradually turn less treacherous.
Even though multiple feet of snow fell in the foothills, this storm may enter the books as a forgettable one in Denver, because official weather records are kept at Denver International Airport, about 15 miles east of downtown. Snow amounts sharply dropped east of the city and airport registered just 5.7 inches. Amounts climbed to 8 to 12 inches downtown and up to 15 to 24 inches in its west and southwest suburbs.
Although final storm amounts are still trickling in, some of the top totals from the foothills and Interstate 25 corridor on Denver’s west side include:
- 25.5 inches in Golden
- 24.5 inches in Lone Tree (15 miles south of Denver)
- 22 inches in Ponderosa Park (30 miles southeast of Denver)
- 20.5 inches near Boulder
- 13 inches in Aurora
- 10.6 inches in Federal Heights (8 miles north of Denver)
“I think it’s safe to call this the biggest foothills snowstorm since March ’03,” Chris Bianchi, a broadcast meteorologist for 9News in Denver, wrote on X.
Across the Front Range, from around Estes Park to the west of Loveland and then southward toward Woodland Park (west of Colorado Springs), many spots reported between 2 and 4 feet of snow, including 61.5 inches north of Idaho Springs to the west of Denver.
Other hefty Front Range totals include:
- 53 inches in Nederland
- 50.7 near Pinecliffe
- 46 inches in Eldora
- 45.7 inches in Genesee
- 40 inches just south of Manitou Springs
- 36 inches in Estes Park
- 36 inches in Woodland Park
- 32 inches in Evergreen
Before this storm, locations east of the Rockies in the Colorado high plains generally had somewhat below average for snowfall on the season — and that’s still the case, even after this storm. But many of the mountainous zones to the west have a healthy snowfall surplus, which this storm boosted.
The long-term snowfall average in Denver is about 48 inches and, after this storm, its total of 35.1 inches still trails that. However, it averages another 10 inches or so through the end of spring, so additional storms could help close the gap.
Farther south, Colorado Springs’s snowfall to date is running more than a foot above average to date. Thursday’s 10.2 inches marked one of the biggest snows in decades. The last time more fell on a single day was April 24, 1997, when 11.1 inches fell.
While temperatures are expected to be milder into next week, melting away the snow, an active storm pattern may provide more opportunities for flakes. Over the past 30 winters, Denver hasn’t received its last inch of snow until April 25 on average.
