Sam Collentine will be off the grid at the Skinner Hut in central Colorado through Tuesday, February 28th. Joel Gratz will be taking over the forecast duties until Sam returns.

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Even though there was light snow on Saturday night, resulting in 1-2 inches of accumulation for mountains along the I-70 corridor, the road surface appears mostly dry on Sunday morning. The weather on Sunday will be sunny and dry, so the only trouble you’ll encounter on the road is the typical Sunday traffic heading east toward Denver. This traffic usually builds starting late morning and continues through evening, peaking during the late afternoon and dinner time.

The next storm moves in on Sunday night, though we should only see light snow showers at this time and through the day on Monday. Any of these snow showers could produce enough snow to make the road snow packed and slow traffic, though I do not anticipate many or any travel issues on Monday.

More intense snow should fall starting on Monday evening and it will continue through Tuesday night. During this time, I do expect I-70 to be snow packed with slower travel speeds and potential closures due to accidents. Most mountains should have a powder day on Tuesday (4-8 inches), so give yourself a little extra time to get to your favorite ski area to take advantage of the new snow. Also, due to a cold front that will stall near the I-70 corridor, there could be deeper snow than this forecast.

Additional snow will continue to accumulate on Tuesday night as the wind direction switches to blow from the northwest.

A cold northwest flow can dump a lot of snow at places like Vail, Copper, Breckenridge, Loveland, and Winter Park, so roads will continue to be snow packed through Wednesday morning, and there could be great powder to enjoy on Wednesday morning as well.

Following this storm, the sun should return on Wednesday which should help to melt a lot of the snow on the roads, and travel speeds should become normal again as we see sunny and dry weather from Wednesday afternoon through the weekend.

JOEL GRATZ