Snow and rain is moving out of Colorado this evening, after a messy break from unseasonably warm weather across a wide swath of the state. But if spring’s your thing, have no fear: daily high temperatures return to the 60s and 70s starting Wednesday.
The high in Denver today reached only 39 degrees — less than half of the record high of 84 on Sunday — but temperatures in the city rebound to 60 degrees Wednesday and 70 on Thursday and Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
The average daily high temperature for this week is 59 degrees.
Most of the snow bypassed Denver. The city’s official monitoring site at Denver International Airport recorded just 2 inches by this afternoon, according to National Weather Service data.
Spotters in Idaho Springs, Nederland and west of Conifer reported 8 inches.
A winter weather advisory for the central Front Range foothills expires at 6 p.m., though most of the snow tapered off this afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
The storm was a welcome, albeit late addition to a statewide snowpack that is just 49 percent of its 30-year average, and just 45 percent.
The surprise winter storm capped off a week and a half of dramatically high temperatures and .
Partly as a result, as many as 23,000 Xcel Energy customers woke up to powerless homes today.
Some of the outages were directly weather related, such as broken limbs and blown transformers — but the buildup of dust, dirt and road solvents on some lines caused power to arc from the line to the pole, said Xcel spokesman Mark Stutz.
That happened at about a dozen locations, but when the system detects such a problem, it shuts itself down.
Less than 500 customers remained without power this afternoon, but most, if not all, should be restored this evening, Stutz said.
An outage caused Lumberg Elementary School in Edgewater to cancel classes today, though power was restored to the area at about 11 a.m.
Though metro region can see snowstorms well into May, an outlook by the this month.
Denver Public Works e-mailed a report of the latest storm this afternoon, warning of potentially slick roads tonight when the sun goes down and temperatures drop to near freeze.
The subject line of the e-mail was, “Possibly the LAST Snow Update for the Season.”
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
