The mountains could continue to pick up snow — much-needed in northern Colorado — but metro Denver is facing a slow start to the year’s snowiest month, according to the National Weather Service.
Only slight chances of nighttime snow with daytime highs above 50 degrees in Denver are forecast through the end of next week, according to the National Weather Service office in Boulder.
Temperatures at Denver International Airport, the region’s official weather station, could reach 60 degrees Thursday, and possibly again on Saturday and Sunday.
The Western Slope is a different matter, where a winter weather advisory is in effect until 6 p.m. Friday.
Snow will move into western Colorado Thursday and continue through Thursday night, leaving another 5 to 10 inches on the region.
Colorado’s snowpack this year is respectable — 87 percent of the 30-year average — but the southern half of the state has received most of it.
The southern half of the state ranges from 98 percent to 101 percent of average, but in northern Colorado are lower — 79 percent in the west-central Colorado River basin and 75 percent to 82 percent across the northern half of the state.
Most of Colorado’s reservoirs are in the mountains. If normal weather continues the next two months, Denver Water’s reservoirs should fill up with the spring runoff, spokeswoman Stacy Chesney said.
The National Weather Service characterizes March as unpredictable, with heavy snow and cold snaps, quick melt-offs, hail, thunderstorms and tornadoes as winter gives way to spring and warm, moisture from the Southeast collides with cold air from Canada and the Northwest.
“The resulting weather can be wild and crazy for areas surrounding Denver,” the Weather Service reported in its March preview.
And the month can defy trends.
The snowiest March on record was in 2003, when 35.2 inches fell on the city. The next year, Denver got only 1.8 inches, the second driest on record.
A late-March blizzard last year dropped 7.9 inches of snow in one day, a record for a 24-hour period, as the month recorded 13.8 inches of snow, or 2.1 inches above normal.
February was 4 degrees colder than average and collected a half-inch less than the average of snowfall of 6.3 inches, according to weather records.
