DENVER—Snow falling as fast as an inch an hour Sunday dumped 10 to 20 inches in parts of Durango, closing several mountain passes in southwest Colorado and crimping business on Super Bowl Sunday.
Pizza cook Colter Niendorf said it was nearly all white outside the downtown Durango restaurant where he works.
“We don’t have any drivers today because of the snow. We can’t do any deliveries,” he said.
Forecasters did not expect a break in the snow until Monday night or early Tuesday, National Weather Service senior forecaster Chris Cuoco said.
By Sunday afternoon, Fort Lewis College had decided to cancel classes for Monday and said campus offices would be closed.
Heavy snow was expected for all of western Colorado during the storm through Monday, from Aspen through Vail and Steamboat Springs as subtropical moisture mixed with cold air from the north, Cuoco said.
The heavy snow and wind were expected to make driving difficult on Interstate 70 from eastern Utah all the way to Vail Pass.
The avalanche danger was rated high for southwest Colorado but also for areas including Crested Butte and Aspen, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. Colorado 133 over McClure Pass, west of Aspen, was closed due to an avalanche Sunday evening.
In Antonito near the New Mexico border, Danna Lujan reported near whiteout conditions. “It’s coming down hard,” she said.
In Durango, Niendorf said he shoveled his driveway Sunday morning, then went outside again six hours later to start the car. “The snow looked like it did before I started shoveling,” he said.
Several winter storms have helped push snowpack in southern Colorado far above the 30-year average. Snowpack in the Arkansas River basin in southeast Colorado was 162 percent of average as of Friday, 168 percent of average in the Upper Rio Grande and 158 percent of average in the southwest corner of the state.
Among ski areas, Wolf Creek in southwest Colorado led resorts with a 146 inch base at its mid-mountain reporting station. It reported 26 inches of fresh snow Sunday within the past 24 hours.
