DENVER-
Beleaguered farmers and ranchers in southeastern Colorado braced Friday for a powerful storm expected to bring up to 7 inches of snow and winds gusting to 60 mph.
The National Weather Service posted a blizzard warning through Saturday evening for all of the Plains counties and as far west as Douglas County, with a snow and blowing snow advisory for the Denver metropolitan area and much of the state’s high country.
Forecasters said southeastern Colorado would be hardest hit, with 4 to 7 inches of snow and sustained winds over 40 mph.
The snow was expected to end Saturday afternoon, but winds were likely to continue building large drifts, said Tom Magnuson, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pueblo.
“It’ll be tough travel there if not impossible there on Saturday,” he said.
Storms in December and January dumped several feet of snow on the state’s southeastern corner, causing drifts up to 10 feet in places and killing thousands of cattle. Ranchers have gathered their cattle in clearings and stockpiled feed since then, said Scott Brase, Colorado State University’s agriculture extension agent for the area.
“It doesn’t look too good,” he said of the incoming storm. “The wind is the biggest concern now. What snow we do have on the ground just adds to what falls. It doesn’t take a whole lot of snow and we’ll be right back where we were. It limits our accessibility to cattle.”
Magnuson said accumulations along the Interstate 25 corridor from northern El Paso County to Trinidad should be light, ranging from 1 to 3 inches in Colorado Springs and about 1 inch in areas such as Pueblo and Trinidad.
Snowfall of 2 to 5 inches was expected from Douglas County to Greeley, with winds of 20 to 35 mph gusting to 55 mph, the Weather Service said. Forecasters predicted 5 to 12 inches of snow in the southwestern mountains and 4 to 9 inches in the central and northern mountains.
