Care for a little brine and corn with your snow, Denver?
With bitter cold and snow on the way Tuesday into Wednesday, road crews will spread a mixture of brine and water that prevents ice from adhering to pavement, said Stacia Sellers, a Colorado Department of Transportation spokesman. This is the first year the city has used the solution, Sellers said.
Road crews will begin shifts at 3 a.m., she said. When it gets below 16 degrees, CDOT workers will use a different formula of magnesium chloride containing a corn-byproduct that works even below zero, Sellers said.
A blast of arctic air will lower temperatures to levels Denver residents haven’t experienced since the winter of 2015, prompting homeless shelters and road crews to gear up for icy roads and dangerously cold temperatures.
Temperatures will plummet from the 50s Monday to minus-5 by Thursday morning. It will be the first below-zero temperatures in Denver since Feb. 27, 2015, when the low was minus-6, said Robert Koopmeiners, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Boulder.
Koopmeiners cautioned residents to be careful about exposure to cold temperatures that could cause frostbite.
Because of the cold temperatures expected through Thursday, the Samaritan House will allow homeless people to remain at the shelter during the day instead of turning them out in the morning.
Koopmeiners called the storm headed to Denver a mini Arctic system. He said it won’t begin to approach the bitter cold Denver residents endured in 1990, when the high temperature stayed in minus territory for five straight days between Dec. 20 and Christmas Eve and the low was minus-25.
A northerly wind current was expected to reach Colorado late in the afternoon Monday. The low temperature will be around 12 degrees Monday night.
There is a 30 percent chance of snow Tuesday afternoon, Koopmeiners said.
“It should start snowing around rush hour,” he said.
The high temperature on Tuesday will be about 28 degrees. The chance for snow increases to 90 percent Tuesday night, when the wind chill factor will make it feel about minus-6 degrees, the NWS predicts. Snow is expected to continue into Wednesday, mostly before 11 a.m.
Anywhere between 1 and 3 inches of snow is expected by Wednesday morning, Koopmeiners said.
“I imagine driving to work will be crappy Wednesday morning,” he said.
Wednesday night it will get very cold with a low of about minus 5.
The mountains could get up to 18 inches of new snow by Thursday morning, Koopmeiners said.
“The ski industry will be grateful for the snow. The foothills should get some snow too — up to 10 inches of snow is possible,” he said.
Although the storm will blow over, it will remain chilly in Denver on Thursday under sunny skies. The high will reach about 21 degrees, according to the weather service.
It will warm up under sunny skies Friday through Sunday, with highs in the lower 40s.
