Initial investigation shows a motorcycle and a pickup truck collided on the highway near milepost 4 in the northbound lane of the highway, according to a release from the state patrol. Troopers responded at about 3:48 p.m., and the motorcyclist, a 55-year-old man, was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The northbound lane was closed between 64th and 82nd avenues, but it had reopened as of 5:45 p.m.

Drivers should avoid the area, officials said. The Colorado State Patrol is investigating the crash. Anyone with information about the crash who has not spoken to an investigator should call Colorado State Patrol dispatch at 303-239-4501 and reference 1A261161. Witnesses should be prepared to leave their contact information for a call back at a later time.

Colorado State University closed its campus on Thursday afternoon, and the Poudre School District closed its mountain schools because of the wind damage. The CSU campus closure forced CHSAA to relocate its state 2A boys and girls basketball tournament Great 8 games to local high schools.

The Larimer County Office of Emergency Management sent evacuation notifications to 2,401 contacts after a wildfire erupted near the intersection of U.S. 287 and Sterry Lane, north of Fort Collins near Laporte. The evacuation order was brief as fire crews gained control after a few hours. No injuries were reported and no buildings were destroyed, said Kate Kimble, a Larimer County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.

The cause remains under investigation.

The reported multiple semitrailer rollovers in the Jefferson County foothills and along Interstate 25 between Fort Collins and the Wyoming border.

One 38-year-old driver was taken to a hospital after his semitrailer crashed at 8:44 a.m. on Colorado 93 in Jefferson County. The semitrailer struck a power line.

A second semitrailer crash at 9:22 a.m. in Jefferson County caused the closure of eastbound I-70 on Lookout Mountain for several hours. No injuries were reported, but the truck leaked 30 gallons of fuel onto the road.

The state patrol also reported four semitrailer rollover crashes on Interstate 25 within three hours on a stretch between Fort Collins and the Wyoming border. One driver was taken to a hospital.

The Colorado Department of Transportation closed the interstate for several hours because of the wind.

While no utility companies chose to preemptively shut off power to their customers, thousands of homes and businesses in the Front Range lost electricity after the wind blew down power lines. The entire town of Wellington in Larimer County lost power on Thursday morning, and as of 5 p.m. Thursday, reported that more than 17,000 of its customers were without electricity. As many as 32,000 customers were without power earlier Thursday.

Xcel Energy warned customers that dangerously high winds in Saturday’s forecast were leading the utility to make emergency power shutoffs starting around 2 p.m. The winds were expected to last until around 5 p.m., the company

Residents in Boulder and Jefferson counties are at risk of losing electricity during those hours and should prepare for the outages, Xcel said.

Multiple agencies put fire restrictions in place, including Rocky Mountain National Park, which banned fires inside the park’s boundaries. Campers in Moraine Park were allowed to use petroleum-fueled stoves and grills that can be turned on and off. Smoking is also not allowed.

Peak wind gusts recorded on Thursday include:

• Denver International Airport: 48 mph

• Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport: 56 mph

• Buckeye station in Larimer County: 94 mph

• Xcel’s Gold Hill station near Four Mile Canyon: 92 mph

• National Lab of the Rockies in Boulder: 94 mph

The high winds were caused by a Chinook weather pattern in which downslope winds reach the crest of the Rocky Mountains and then pick up speed as they traverse the foothills, said Zach Hiris, a meteorologist with the .

The winds had slowed in the Denver metro by late afternoon but were expected to continue at higher elevations into Friday morning, Hiris said. And another band of strong winds was forecast for Friday.

“For the Front Range communities further up into the hills, we’ve got at least another 12 to 18 hours to go,” Hiris said on Thursday evening.

The Candelas neighborhood was under a pre-evacuation warning for several hours after the Plainview fire sparked near Colorado 93 and Colorado 72 at 8:35 am., Arvada Fire Rescue spokesperson Brady Johnson said.

The fire, which charred an estimated 130 acres, was mostly contained by 10 a.m. fire officials said. Law enforcement lifted pre-evacuation orders at 11:40 a.m. at reopened Colorado 93 and Colorado 72 just before 1 p.m.

No one was injured and no structures were threatened by the fire, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said.

The Plainview Fire is at 80% containment and does not appear to be related to the train tracks. Great team work from , , , Boulder Open Space, Coal Creek Fire & . Please avoid the area due to the ongoing fire suppression efforts…

— Jeffco Sheriff (@jeffcosheriffco)

“Breezy conditions and dry fuels enabled this fire to quickly grow in size,”

The fire was largely boxed in on the northwest side of the two highways, Johnson said. The cause of the fire is under investigation and does not appear to be related to the nearby railroad tracks, according to the sheriff’s office.

CDOT officials warned of unsafe conditions, especially for high-profile vehicles, and advised travelers to delay non-essential trips.

The closures as of 10:45 a.m. included:

• Colorado 93 in both directions from 64th Avenue in Arvada to Colorado 170.
• Colorado 72 in both directions from Colorado 7 to Ward Road.
• U.S. 36 in both directions from Boulder to Lyons.
• Colorado 128 in both directions from Colorado 93 to McCaslin Boulevard.

“Strong and dangerous winds continue to impact the foothills, particularly in Boulder County, with gusts still reaching up to 80 mph in some locations,” CDOT officials said in a statement Friday morning. “As a result, several highways are currently closed due to unsafe conditions, particularly for high-profile vehicles. Motorists should expect sudden changes in travel conditions and consider delaying non-essential trips.”

This is a developing story.

Wind gusts reached 109 mph at the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Mesa Laboratory in Boulder on Wednesday, while a wind sensor at Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge recorded 102 mph gusts and a west Boulder County sensor near Fourmile Canyon recorded 95 mph winds, according to the National Weather Service’s Boulder office.

This type of windstorm is not unusual for Colorado in the fall and winter, but it may have caught people off guard because the state hasn’t seen anything similar in the past four years, weather service meteorologist Robert Koopmeiners said.

In December 2021, similar extreme winds and tinder-dry conditions allowed the Marshall fire to race across Boulder County, killing two people and destroying more than 1,000 homes. A Boulder County district attorney’s investigation found downed Xcel Energy lines sparked the fire, although the company continues to deny its equipment was responsible.

Winter windstorms are “not a surprise,” Koopmeiners said. “We have these areas that are very favored for those downsloping winds, and those are the areas that got it.”

Denver-area weather should be comparatively calm Thursday, with a high near 47 degrees and winds around 10 mph, according to forecasters.

But Friday is a different story, and Front Range residents should brace for a repeat of Wednesday’s weather, Koopmeiners said. A likely will bring winds that are just as strong — if not stronger — to the Front Range starting midmorning Friday and lasting into the late evening.

Friday also could bring , with DIA forecast to reach 68 degrees. The previous daily record, 67 degrees, was last set in 2023.

Although the worst impacts of Wednesday’s storm stuck to the foothills, winds picked up throughout the Denver area and Interstate 25 corridor. Wind gusts reached 83 mph at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield, 47 mph at Centennial Airport and 32 mph at DIA, according to the weather service.

The storm also pushed winds to 52 mph at the Northern Colorado Regional Airport in Loveland and 35 mph at the Colorado Springs Airport.

Xcel Energy leaders preemptively in Boulder, Clear Creek, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld counties on Wednesday morning as the storm picked up, a move meant to prevent downed powerlines from starting wildfires.

As of 6:30 p.m., Xcel crews were responding to 176 unplanned outages affecting 113,560 customers in Adams, Denver, Jefferson, Boulder, Larimer, Weld, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Douglas, Eagle and Clear Creek counties, according to the

reported 16,313 customers without power in Clear Creek, Douglas, Jefferson, Park and Teller counties on Wednesday night.

Several school districts and colleges also preemptively canceled classes because of expected power outages, including the University of Colorado, Red Rocks Community College and schools in Clear Creek, Weld RE-4 and Poudre school districts.

Jeffco Public Schools canceled all Wednesday classes late Tuesday, which district officials said “reflects the consideration that went into it as well as the evolving nature of the situation.�

Impacts of the winds rippled throughout Colorado’s transportation systems on Wednesday, with delays, closures and cancellations hitting highways, public transport and the Denver airport.

Colorado Department of Transportation officials closed several highways through the foothills and northern Colorado starting at noon and stopped high-profile vehicles, like tractor-trailers and RVs, from traveling on the Peak to Peak highway.

were still active as of 7 p.m. Wednesday for U.S. 287 between Ted’s Place in Larimer County and the Wyoming state line; Colorado 93 between Colorado 128 and Colorado 72; Colorado 128 between McCaslin Boulevard and Colorado 93; and U.S. 36 north of Boulder to Lyons.

In the west metro area, planned power cuts caused the Regional Transportation District to close three light rail stations serving the W-Line between the Jefferson County Government Center Station in Golden to Union Station in Denver. RTD officials replaced train service with buses.

As the storm moved east across the metro area, Federal Aviation Administration officials ordered a ground delay at DIA at 3:30 p.m., causing an average departure delay of 74 minutes and impacting more than 400 flights.

Airlines reported 393 flight delays and 12 flight cancellations Wednesday night, according to the .

Not even the holiday spirit could escape the wind Wednesday, with Denver tourism officials canceling the Denver Christkindlmarket and Mile High Drone Show and removing access to the Mile High Tree because of the storm.

More public safety power cuts are possible during Friday’s storm, according to Xcel Energy.

A wind storm is expected to bring gusts reaching 80 to 90 mph through the entire Interstate 25 corridor, from the Wyoming to New Mexico state lines, according to the .

officials announced planned closures of Colorado 93, U.S. 128 and U.S. 287 starting at noon because of the high winds, with no estimated time of reopening. A “” was also issued for roads in Clear Creek and Jefferson counties.

Some roads may also be closed to high-profile vehicles like tractor-trailers, RVs, campers or light vehicles because of the risk of blowing over, CDOT officials said.

Traffic signals that are dark because of power cuts should be treated as four-way stops.

Colorado road and highway closures as of 1 p.m.:

• near Deer Trail, between exit 328 and U.S. 40
• between Lyons and Boulder
• between Ted’s Place in Larimer County and the Wyoming state line
• between Golden and Boulder
• between McCaslin Boulevard and Colorado 93

This is a developing story and may be updated.

As of 7:20 p.m. Wednesday, road closures include:

• Colorado 128 / 120th Avenue between Wadsworth Boulevard and U.S. 287 in Broomfield
• Southbound Colorado 119 between Great Western Drive and County Line road in Longmont
• One lane of southbound Interstate 25 between 144th Avenue and 126th Avenue in Thornton because of a crash

Colorado 93 was also previously closed in both directions between 58th Avenue near Fairmount and Colorado 72 near Arvada after more than a dozen cars slid off the road Wednesday morning, Colorado State Patrol spokesperson Ivan Alvarado said.

No injuries were reported, Alvarado said. The highway was fully reopened as of Wednesday afternoon.

Denver police responded to 26 crashes between 6 and 8 a.m., . No one was seriously injured in any of the crashes, police said.

Car stuck in the snow on Colorado roads? How to be ready before that happens

"Take it slow, leave room, and drive safe!" Denver police officials wrote on social media.

Information on current road closures can be found online at .

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The Colorado Department of Transportation reported the crash happened between Colorado 93 and Colorado 119, but didn’t release any information about the people or vehicles involved.

The eastbound lanes Friday morning. The took longer to clear, but were open again by 11 a.m. Friday.

State Patrol Sgt. Patrick Rice said investigators believe one car swerved over the state highway’s median into oncoming traffic, causing the four-car pileup near Arvada.

Three people were taken to the hospital after the crash last Thursday, where one person later died, state patrol officials said. The wrong-way driver was one of the people hospitalized, according to Rice.

The crash happened south of West 56th Avenue in Jefferson County at about 6:12 a.m. Thursday, temporarily closing the state highway in both directions for the investigation and cleanup.

Rice said charges are pending for the wrong-way driver, who has not been publicly identified, but have not officially been filed. He said investigators are waiting on additional information about the crash but didn’t specify what those details were.

This is a developing story and may be updated. 

The highway was closed in both directions between Coal Creek Canyon Road/Colorado 72 and Colorado 170, south of Eldorado Springs, according to CDOT officials. It reopened overnight.

Traffic cameras on Tuesday showed blowing snow covering stretches of the roadway and , according to the National Weather Service.

This is a developing story and will be updated.