Airlines canceled hundreds of flights at the Denver airport Thursday, schools shut down and snowplows patrolled Colorado highways as a major spring snowstorm threatened to turn into a blizzard across nearly half the state.
Snow was falling at up to 2 inches an hour, and by midday up to 9 inches had accumulated at the base of the foothills west of Denver.
Denver and most of the eastern half of the state were under a blizzard warning. Most of the rest of the state was under a winter storm warning.
About 10 miles of heavily traveled U.S. 36 was closed in both directions from the northwest Denver suburbs to Boulder because of accidents and unsafe conditions. Weather-related accidents caused traffic backups on other freeways in the Denver area.
Interstate 25 was closed from the northern Colorado town of Wellington to the Wyoming border 20 miles away.
“I saw three flipped cars,” said Zachary Whitaker, who spent four hours driving his grandmother to the Denver airport from Gering, Neb. “Five more run off the road. Cars in ditches all over.”
Forecasters predicted up to 2 feet of snow south and east of Denver by Friday and up to 15 inches in the city itself. More than a foot of snow was expected in the foothills west of Denver, and snow on the Eastern Plains was expected to range from 6 to 15 inches.
The National Weather Service said wind gusts of up to 40 mph in Denver and 45 mph on the Eastern Plains would create blizzard-like conditions.
At Denver International Airport, the terminal was thick with stranded travelers standing before monitors reeling off dozens of “CANCELED” alerts. There was no word on when flights would resume.
The storm ruined spring break travel for many.
“I’m trying to go visit my granddaughter,” fretted Peggy Johnson of Morrison. Johnson’s flight to Missoula, Mont..
But the storm was welcome news for others after a dry winter marked by repeated brush fires and fire warnings.
“We’re happy. We were hoping for this,” said Shawn Martini, a spokesman for the Colorado Farm Bureau.
“It may disrupt some guys who were in the field planting,” he said. “But at this point, they can delay that because the water is more important.”
It could be the heaviest snow to hit Denver and other cities at the eastern edge of the mountains since December 2007, when three successive storms dumped a total of more than 30 inches.
Snow was already piled high Thursday morning west of the Continental Divide. Colorado Department of Transportation workers said icy conditions on Interstate 70 extended from the mountains west to the Utah border.
“We’ve got at least 8 inches out there so far,” said Naomi Ritter of Breckenridge, a self-described “doughnut lady” at Daylight Donuts. Ritter said the snow was heaviest before dawn but had stopped before 9 a.m.
Dozens of school districts called off classes Thursday; others were closed for spring break. The University of Colorado in Boulder and Colorado State University in Fort Collins shut down early.
At the state Capitol in Denver, political fights turned into snowball fights. Lawmakers in the House challenged their counterparts in the Senate to a battle on the statehouse lawn later in the day.
Both the House and the Senate shut down early, as did many state and federal courts.
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Associated Press Writers Steven K. Paulson, Colleen Slevin and Don Mitchell contributed to this report.
