Clouds increasing with afternoon mountain snow

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - Skies cleared out once again overnight last night, and we started our Wednesday morning with sunny to mostly cloudy skies around the Western Slope. Clouds quickly increased through the morning, and we’ll continue to see more of a transition to partly and mostly cloudy skies as we head into the afternoon. Isolated snow showers in the higher elevations early this afternoon will become more scattered and widespread into the afternoon, but they will continue to be limited to the higher elevations of the region, including the High Country, the Flat Tops, portions of the Grand Mesa, portions of the Continental Divide, the San Juan Mountains, and portions of the Uncompahgre Plateau. Be prepared to run into a few of those scattered snow showers if you’re headed across Interstate 70 starting around Parachute and Rifle, but especially from Glenwood Springs, Vail, and over into Denver. There could be a few slick spots where some of the heaviest snow showers set up, but most of the bigger potential travel impacts should stay north of Interstate 70. As much as trace to 2 inches of snow is possible around most of the Western Slope locations that see snow showers. A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for the Elkhead and Park Mountains and the Flat Tops above 8500 feet from 10 AM Wednesday morning to 5 AM Thursday morning for snowfall accumulations of 4 to 7 inches. Some minor travel impacts are possible if your Thanksgiving travel takes you north of Glenwood Springs, east of Meeker, and generally around Steamboat Springs. Scattered snow showers will continue through the evening and overnight hours while the valleys continue to see partly to mostly cloudy skies. Overnight lows will fall into the upper teens and lower to middle 20s.

Thanksgiving morning starts out with mostly cloudy skies and a few lingering mountain snow showers, then things will start to clear out from there. Mostly sunny to sunny skies settle back into the region starting late tomorrow morning, and we’ll continue to see sunny skies into the afternoon with highs in the lower to middle 40s. Sunny skies continue into Black Friday as well with highs in the middle 40s. Clouds will increase a little more into the weekend, but we’ll continue to see partly cloudy to mostly sunny skies with highs warming into the middle and upper 40s with some lower 50s. Some isolated snow showers will once again be possible along the High Country Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Clouds will start to increase ahead of the arrival of our next system on Monday, but much of the day should be dry with highs once again in the upper 40s. Rain and snow showers are expected to develop late Monday evening and continue into the overnight hours, then we could see a widespread transition over to snow into early Tuesday morning. Rain and snow showers will continue through the day on Tuesday, then things should start to dry out again Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning.

Meteorologist Zack Webster

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