Love the rainy, snowy weather in Aspen lately?
Condition changes expected later this week, National Weather Service says
Ray K. Erku/The Aspen Times
Too bad it isn’t still ski season.
Top basin areas surrounding the upper Roaring Fork Valley were hit with between 5-10 inches of wet, spring snow Sunday into Tuesday, according to National Weather Service rough estimates. Some snow reports show top basin areas on the Crested Butte side received 11 inches of snow accumulation.
This translated to about 1.5-2 inches of liquid equivalent at higher elevations near Snowmass Village, Grand Junction-based hydrologist Erin Walter said on Tuesday. Liquid equivalent typically measures about .15 to .20 of liquid generated for every 1 inch of snow at an outside temperature of 35 degrees.
Lower elevations closer to Aspen saw about .5-1 inch of liquid content during the same time.
A strong, low-pressure storm system dragged across Colorado into Tuesday, she said. The wraparound moisture from lower parts of the system not only brought periodic snow showers, but also caused temperatures to drop below early-May averages.
Data gathered at the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport shows a recent high hit 64 degrees on Sunday, only to plummet to 34 degrees by noon Tuesday. Average highs for the Aspen area this time of year usually hit lower 50s, Walter said.
“In general, we’ve been running cooler than this time of year,” she said. “Which has actually been pretty nice because the month of April was anomalously warm and pretty dry for the most part, so that allowed a lot of our snowpack to decrease.
“Really, for the month of May thus far, we’ve been trending below normal for the average temperature by two to three degrees at the Aspen airport,” she added.
Snowpack in Roaring Fork Watershed, which covers all of Pitkin County, was 90% of normal to begin May, according to a recent Roaring Fork Conservancy report.
“Multiple days of cooler temperatures and precipitation over the past week have slowed the recently accelerating snowmelt for the time being,” the report states. “With less snowmelt entering local rivers, stream flows in the watershed have decreased and are currently below average (53-97% of normal).”
So when’s the nasty weather going to subside?
Walter said as the storm system continues toward the northeast, temperatures are expected to rise by 20 degrees. Though Tuesday temps were expected to reach low 40s, the remaining arctic air will push toward the central U.S. later in the week to help temps rise to about low 60s in Aspen and upper 60s in Carbondale by Saturday.
Despite the expected temperature rise into the weekend, chances are lingering moisture could still cause intermittent snow showers at higher elevations.
“As long as we have moisture, we can get showers pop up over the higher terrain,” Walter said. “So if folks aren’t prepared for maybe even flurries of snow at the top or higher elevations, they maybe can be caught off guard. Definitely check the afternoon weather, and if there’s hikes in the afternoon up high, I’d be wary of storms that develop in the afternoon time frame.”
Ray K. Erku can be reached at (970) 429-9120 or rerku@aspentimes.com.
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