When it comes to snowstorms, a variation of Murphy’s Law is always in effect, say those who plan for the events. “Our motto is hope for the best but plan for the worst,” said Denver Public Works spokeswoman Ann Williams.
But Wednesday, with the season’s first big snow, things went more or less as expected. By early evening, some areas in the eastern foothills had been slammed with up to 28 inches, according to the National Weather Service, and 10 to 15 inches had fallen in the urban corridor that includes Denver. In the city’s eastern suburbs, 3 to 8 inches were on the ground.
There were spotty power outages in Boulder and Broomfield, a few traffic wrecks and a brief closure of Interstate 70. But Denver International Airport easily handled the snowfall, and major Front Range roads were relatively clear.
Several school districts chose to close Wednesday. By early evening, Aurora and Jefferson County Public Schools had already declared today a snow day.
Snow was expected to continue falling overnight and through early afternoon today — and some forecasts called for another 7 to 15 inches of snow in Denver, with much more in the foothills.
Planning, forecasting
Planning and accurate forecasting played a role in the relative smoothness of Wednesday’s morning and afternoon commutes. Plows and other equipment were mobilized throughout the state and Denver metro area Tuesday before the storm system began dousing the area with a cold rain that soon turned to snow that night.
Had recent weather been colder, roads would have been pretreated with chemicals to keep the ice at bay. But road temperatures, measured by sensors below the pavement and on trucks mounted with plows, has to be below freezing for the solution to work, said Williams.
The Colorado Department of Transportation laid down mostly solid de-icer to keep roads manageable as the snow fell throughout Wednesday. “The snow is wet and heavy, and pavement temperature is warm, so liquids become diluted,” spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said.
Crews paid special attention to areas quick to freeze such as viaducts, overpasses and heavily shaded areas, Williams said.
“Very manageable”
By midafternoon, snow in Denver was falling at a rate of about a quarter inch per hour.
“That’s very manageable,” Williams said. “When it speeds up, it gets a lot tougher. The key is to keep running the routes.”
Roads were still slippery, and the Colorado Highway Patrol handled a large number of wrecks, said Sgt. John Hahn. “There were problems in and around Floyd Hill, the drive from Colorado Springs over Monument Hill through Castle Rock,” Hahn said. Interstate 25 from Fort Collins to the Wyoming border was also a hot spot for accidents into the early afternoon.
One trucker neglected to chain his tires heading over Floyd Hill and slid sideways, blocking I-70 and forcing a temporary closure.
One of the biggest problems facing CDOT was the unpredictable nature of the snowfall, Stegman said. “Just when we would have a handle on one area, the snow would pick up in another.”
Keeping up with snow
Castle Rock had 20 snowplows on the street all day, and crews were able to keep up with the snow, city spokeswoman Kristin Zagurski said in an e-mail. The town had about 8 inches of snow by 4 p.m.
Accumulation varied throughout the Denver metro area and along the Front Range. Weather spotters reported 4 p.m. totals of 14 inches in Lakewood and 24 inches in southwest Conifer, according to the National Weather Service.
Far less fell at DIA, where getting there in a car was a bigger concern than getting out on a plane.
Some airlines canceled flights and waived fees for changing departures, but the airport remained fully operational.
After several years of upgrading DIA’s snow-fighting plan, operations chief John Kinney said the airport now is ready for a “rematch” with a major storm — a foe like the Dec. 20, 2006, blizzard that shut DIA for nearly two days.
Wednesday’s storm did not prove to be such a match. Despite some dire predictions, only a couple of inches of snow had fallen at the airport by mid afternoon — an amount easily handled by snow-removal crews clearing the runways, taxiways and ramp areas.
“We’re managing the storm instead of it managing us,” Kinney said.
Temporary power loss
As many as 4,000 Xcel Energy customers lost power temporarily Wednesday.
As of 5:09 p.m., about 900 customers in Boulder and another 900 or so elsewhere were without power, said Xcel spokesman Tom Henley. Most of the power failures were the result of tree branches’ collapsing under the weight of snow onto power lines.
In some areas, leaves still on trees accumulated snow that helped bring down the branches, he said.
“I think we have been very fortunate in that the majority of trees in the area have shed their leaves and we haven’t seen major problems,” he said.
Staff writers Kieran Nicholson and Jeffrey Leib contributed to this report.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
