Winter weather warnings have been issued for parts of New Mexico and Colorado as a strong storm moves across the country. The Denver metro area is now being warned about potential impacts from this storm.
This is the same storm system that gave good rain to Southern California earlier this week. It is forecast to hit millions of people from the Southwest to the Northeast with a slew of dangers, including heavy snow, severe weather, and flooding rain, greatly affecting travel in these areas.
As of Wednesday morning, the system had been severed from the jet stream and had developed into an upper-level area of low pressure. As a result, it has disengaged from strong steering winds and is slowly moving across the region.
Although the cold air has been reduced, the FOX Forecast Center reports that there is still enough to cause snow to fall in the Four Corners region’s mountains.
The storm began to dump snow in Arizona on Tuesday, with the highest snow accumulations ranging from 4.5 inches in Williams to 10 inches in Walker.
Flagstaff accumulated roughly 1.3 inches of snow.
Denver braces for potential impact
As of Wednesday morning, snow continued to fall in Arizona’s higher elevations, while rain fell in the lower elevations.
Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Storm Warnings are in force for sections of New Mexico and Colorado, which will be hit next by the winter storm.
“So, we have a couple snow flurries in these overnight hours, but it’s really going to pick up with a vengeance,” FOX Weather Meteorologist Britta Merwin said early Wednesday morning. “I mean, Taos (New Mexico) is going to get about a foot of snow.” “You’re discussing elevation there.”
The snow is forecast to increase in coverage and severity by Wednesday evening, and Denver is already on the lookout for potential repercussions.
“Denver is going to get more out of this than first advertised,” he added. “You know, we’ve seen a big shift in the computer models where this low kind of takes a push all the way to the north before it gets pushed out to the east.”
Winds blowing up and over the Colorado Rockies may cause a line of snow to form in the Denver metro area.
“So, this is going to impact your drive likely for (Thursday) morning, but definitely showing a lot more snow for the Front Range than what was previously thought because of that change.”