Colorado snowfall set records around the state this weekend

On By Littum

Although the season has just begun, Denver received about 20 inches of snow last week. And if another solid storm comes through before December, it could make history.

“So if the month ended right now — which it obviously isn’t — but right now the 20 inches we have for the month, it would actually be the 10th snowiest November in Denver history,” said Zach Hiris, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “To get to the top two or three, we need to get about eight or nine inches more snow.”

Southeast Denver received an unusually large amount of snow compared to other areas along the Front Range. And according to Hiris, this was simply due to “the way the wind worked.”

Further south, snowfall records for the date were broken in both Pueblo and Colorado Springs.

On Friday, November 8, both cities received record amounts of snowfall. Pueblo received nearly 5 inches of snow – breaking the previous daily record set in 1890. Similarly in Colorado Springs, the southern Colorado town received 8 inches of snow, breaking the previous record of 2.6 inches set in 1975.

To the west, the mountains have also gotten off to a snowy start, giving the state’s early snowpack a boost. Front Range cities and agriculture all rely on a deep snowpack.

“Across the state, for the most part, we’re doing pretty good. We’re driving above average to well above average to start,” Hiris said of the snowpack in the various mountain basins — especially those south of I-70. “But it’s obviously a long way to go before we reach the peak of the snowpack season.”

At the peak of the storm, more than 75,300 people lost power across the state, most of them in the Denver metro area. As of Monday afternoon, more than 1,000 homes in metro Denver are without power, according to Xcel’s map of power outagesbut according to Michelle Aguayo, a spokesperson for the utility, none of these outages are related to the storm.

“Everyone whose power was affected by the storm has been restored,” Aguayo told CPR News.