Power has been largely restored to the estimated 10,000 Xcel Energy customers who were hit by outages because of winds, ice and snow that hit the Denver area overnight.
Mark Stutz, Xcel spokesman, said that as of 1 p.m. only 400 customers remain without power.
“It’s largely over,” said Stutz.
Beginning at about 3 a.m., outages developed east of Interstate 25 affecting northeast Denver, Commerce City, Brighton and southeast Denver.
Although about 10,000 customers lost power, they didn’t lose power all at once, he said.
Stutz said that with the storm approaching, Xcel had extra crews waiting to react. He said they were in a “heightened state of response.”
Stutz said that such outages usually occur in the spring. They are caused by a buildup of “gunk” such as dirt and mag chloride on power lines, he said. When moisture hits the accumulated dirt, it causes electricity in the lines to arc off the lines and into poles.
The result, said Stutz, were about half a dozen pole fires this morning.
At one point, Stutz said, 5,300 customers were without electricity.
Although some people may be without power until later, travel for motorists vastly improved in the metro area by mid-morning as snows lightened and highway snow-removal crews cleared most of what had fallen.
Interstate 70 through Denver was just wet, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation. The interstate was wet with slushy and icy spots to Silverthorne and Copper Mountain.
To the east, I-70 was wet to Byers but then dry to the Kansas border.
Most highways along the Front Range, some of which had been icy and snowpacked before dawn, were wet and slushy by 9:30 a.m., CDOT said.
In downtown Denver, most streets were wet but clear of snow.
Before dawn, heavy snow propelled by high winds caused headaches for motorists.
The National Weather Service said this was a result of both a strong cold front that moved into northeast Colorado late last night and upslope conditions that developed behind it.
Rob Krohn, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said this morning that his office is predicting 3 to 5 inches of snow in the Denver metro area, with higher amounts in the south. The snow was expected to end in Denver about lunch time.
Lakewood had a fleet of snowplows out.
Early problems included rollover accidents at Hampden and Founders Parkway on northbound I-25.
South Quebec Street was closed between East Jewell Avenue and East Warren Drive because of downed power lines, and it was slow going at the shifted lanes around the sinkhole repair on northbound I-25 at 56th Avenue.
Compounding traffic problems, Arapahoe Road was closed in both directions under I-25 because of an early-morning transformer fire. Arapahoe was closed until midafternoon while Xcel stabilizes a power pole that caught fire.
Several school districts announced that they were closed, including Park County Re-2, Platte Canyon District 1 and Platte Canyon High School.
Things were going smoothly at Denver International Airport, said DIA spokesman Chuck Cannon.
“We maybe have gotten an inch of snow,” said Cannon. “The airfield is fully open, and crews have been going all night. It’s not a very big storm. We are in good shape.”
The weather service issued a snow and blowing-snow advisory for Denver, Lakewood, Arvada, Boulder, Aurora, Brighton, Highlands Ranch, DIA, Castle Rock, Byers, Littleton, Parker, Bennett, Byers and Deer Trail until early this afternoon.
It said that north winds of 15 to 25 mph with gusts of 35 mph east of Interstate 25 would produce areas of blowing and drifting snow.
Radar indicated heavy snow to the north and northeast of Denver near Fort Collins, Greeley and Cheyenne. Colorado 13 is closed from Craig to the Wyoming border.
The high today in Denver is expected to be 26.
Elsewhere, a winter-storm warning has been issued for portions of southwest and south-central Colorado, covering the LaGarita and eastern San Juan mountains and includes Wolf Creek Pass, Cumbres Pass, South Fork and Creede.
The weather service said periods of drifting and blowing heavy snow will continue through this evening, with snow totals between 8 and 22 inches.
Forecasters say that there will be widespread snow across southerly portions of the I-25 corridor. Lighter amounts will fall on the southeast plains.
In southwestern Colorado, U.S. 550 over Coal Bank, Molas and Red Mountain passes are all icy and snowpacked but open. In north-central Colorado, U.S. 40 over Rabbit Ears Pass is snowy and slushy, and similar conditions exist in the Steamboat Springs, Hayden and Craig areas.
The Colorado Department of Transportation reported that U.S. 40, which was closed between Maybell and the Utah state line due to blowing and drifting snow, reopened about 12:30 p.m.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
