…Columbus Day Snow Chase — Castle Rock, CO…
Greetings everyone! Well this is a first for me. I have never done a snow chase before, but the timing couldn’t have been more perfect for me. I have both Columbus Day and Tuesday off, which coincides perfect with the timing of what looks to be a major snowstorm for the Colorado “urban corridor”. Both the GFS and the NAM models suggest upwards of two feet of snow south and southwest of Denver by late Monday Night or early Tuesday. Given the unusual early timing of such a powerful snow storm for this area, it may present some problems with numerous trees coming down as many of them have not lost their leaves yet.
I plan to leave Dodge City this afternoon around 2:30pm (Central time) and expect to arrive at my destination of Castle Rock, CO around 7:00pm (Mountain time). It should be raining by the time I get there, but rapidly change to snow sometime between 8pm and 10pm Mountain time. It may even changeover before I arrive. Castle Rock sits at about 6200 feet in elevation which will be plenty high enough for this storm system. Heavy snow will fall overnight tonight and continue heavy through the first half of Monday. By dawn, there may be 8 to 10″ already on the ground, with an additional 8 to 10″ on top of that. Thankfully, the warm ground will prevent a huge accumulation on roads, but if it snows that hard, it really won’t matter much. I hope to document this event extensively through photography and videography as it could be a national news story if there really is widespread 20″ or more of snow in the highly populated areas of the I-25 corridor. -Mike