4:30 AM, Wednesday, April 1, 2015

No fooling, the Front Range region is going to get some cold, wet weather between this evening and Friday morning. That will likely take the form of rain and then slushy snow, freezing into some icy areas by Friday morning. Some heavy snow is likely in the high elevations of the Front Range. Milder weather should return by the weekend.

The initial showers are likely to develop late today and this evening. Not everyone will get rain, but a few of us may hear the season’s first thunder.

Thursday and Thursday night should see a typical spring storm.  In the lower elevations the best chance for snow is during periods of heavier precipitation Thursday (the precipitation helps to cool the atmosphere) and Thursday night. The melting rate will be trying to keep pace with snowfall rate during the day. The precipitation is likely to orient itself in east-west bands of heavy precipitation late Thursday and Thursday evening, so the amounts may be quite variable over short distances. The lower elevations should see mainly wet roads on Thursday, but there may be local areas of accumulation on the roads during periods of heavy snow.  There is a better chance of accumulation on roads Thursday evening, and that should melt off by late Friday morning.

Accumulations:

Northeastern Denver suburbs, Weld County, Longmont, Colorado Springs: 3 inches or less

Cheyenne, Fort Collins, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver (and west/south suburbs): 3-6 inches

Nederland, Evergreen: 6-10 inches

Lesser amounts are expected in the western ranges, especially down in  the San Juans.

The proportion of the storm that will fall is snow is still uncertain. I will have little or no access to the internet for the next two days so i don’t know if I’ll update. But I don’t believe this will be a high-impact storm, just s slushy mess late Thursday or Thursday evening. We really do need the moisture!