Fear not, Boulder County, for serious snow is finally making its way to Boulder and Longmont. The season’s first snowstorm is expected to start in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The lower elevations of Boulder County may have seen their first official snowfall of the season on Saturday — with only a measly quarter-inch of accumulation — but Wednesday was set to be the first substantial snowstorm for the cities of Boulder and Longmont. People in Boulder can expect 3 to 5 inches of snow, and 2 to 4 inches in Longmont, according to Zach Hiris, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder.
Wednesday’s storm marks the first winter weather advisory for the city of Boulder since last season, Hiris said. Hiris forecasts that snowfall will start around midnight and peak between 4 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Wednesday’s storm is supposed to trounce Saturday’s snowfall tenfold, and put a more cinematic end to the bizarrely warm beginning of Boulder County’s winter season.
On Saturday, Boulder’s first snowfall brought only 0.3 inches of snow, Hiris said. Longmont only saw 0.2 inches worth of flakes, according to Longmont’s Dave Larison, a local retired NWS meteorologist. That light powdering marked the latest first snowfall of the season on record for both Boulder and Longmont.
On Tuesday, Boulder County was already preparing for the snowstorm. For county roads, public works was getting its 31 plows ready to go for Wednesday morning, according to Andrew Barth, communication manager for Boulder County Public Works.
The county will start with its priority roads, like South Boulder Road, 95th Street and Magnolia Road, before moving on to the less-trafficked roadways.
“We are short-staffed at this time, so it might take a little longer for trucks to start showing up in those areas, so we ask that residents have a little patience,” Barth wrote in an email. “We also want to remind everyone to give operators plenty of room to move and to not crowd the plow. It’s already a tricky job to focus on removing snow in a several-ton piece of equipment, but it gets harder still when you have to keep an eye on vehicles around you.”
Barth recommends drivers stay 200 feet — or 12 car lengths — behind plows. According to the Colorado Department of Transportation, drivers cannot legally pass snowplows.
Longmont is planning to deploy 13 plows on the road for the storm, according to city of Longmont spokesperson Rogelio Mares. The city has already been bringing, or salting, some roads to prevent them from icing over, Mares said. Expect plows across Longmont around the clock until the storm is over, he said.
People in Boulder can expect to see punny snowplow names. For the fifth year running, Boulder’s K-12 students have named some of the city’s plows. On 17 of Boulder’s plows, anyone looking out their window with a warm cup of cocoa might see snowplows labelled as “Life of a Snowgirl,” “Sleetwood Mac,” “Snow2D2” and “Lollaplowlooza.”
The snowstorm is a welcome change for Boulder County’s skiers. Eldora spokesperson Sam Bass said the ski resort hasn’t been able to open up that many trails for skiers because it has been dry and fairly warm until last week. This storm, he said, will make life — and skiing — easier.
“We’re really excited about it,” Bass said. “These are the kinds of things that make resort operators very excited.”
Bass also said the 4 to 10 inches of snow he expects in Nederland will help bolster the resort’s own snow production, which has been difficult with temperatures remaining above freezing for longer than normal into the winter season. To make its own snow, Bass said the resort needs sub-freezing temperatures and little to no wind. Now, they have that, he said.
“Any natural snow that comes with that is gravy,” Bass said.
The storm is also a welcome weather shift for local ski shops, like Angles Ski, Board & Fly Shop in Longmont. Angles’ owner, Ryan Kazee, said he has heard a lot of chatter about dry weather in the high country. October saw some good storms up in the mountains, Kazee said, but there hasn’t been much snow since then.
Now, business may kick back up, and skiers may get more excited to get out in the mountains.
“We have been looking forward to snow down here just to get everyone’s spirits up,” Kazee said. “This week is a big deal for us as a ski shop.”
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