After receiving a few inches of snow in the metro area on Christmas Day (3.6 in Thornton), another round is on the way and it has the potential to be pretty bad. At 4:56am this morning, the National Weather Service issued a Winter Storm Watch for the entire Front Range.
It is pretty unusual for them to issue a warning this far in advance unless they are confident it is going to hit and hit pretty hard. 4 – 8 inches are currently predicted with the potential for locally heaver amounts. With as cold as it has been and is expected to stay for the next few days, this could get ugly. Please plan your travel accordingly and be safe out there!
A few Christmas snowfall notes, from the National Weather Service:
It appears that there may be a new daily snowfall for Denver for Christmas Day. The data in the link below extends back to 1900. The 2.4 inches recorded today at 6 AM will beat the 1.7 inches set in 1912. After dusting off some old records here at the National Weather Service office we discovered that 6.2 inches of snowfall was recorded on December 25, 1894. We also found that prior to 1905 snowfall was recorded from 8 PM to 8 PM. From Jan 1905 to May 1999 snowfall data was from midnight to midnight. Since May 1999, snowfall data has been recorded from 6 AM to 6 AM. The snow in 1894 began around 8 PM on the 24th and ended around 2 PM on the 25th. The data for December 25, 2007 will show 2.4 inches recorded at 6 AM. The remainder of the snow that fell today will be reflected on the data for the December 26. It will be for the period from 6 AM on the 25th to 6 AM on the 26th. So did we have a record or not? It all depends on how you interpret the data. No matter how you look at it, Christmas day 2007 will be memorable. Click here to check the Christmas day statistics for snowfall from 1900 to 2006.
On a related note… When you look at the measurements for snowfall that we make here at ThorntonWeather.com, those are typically total accumulations for the day we actually received the snow, up until 9:00pm or so. The National Weather Service standard of 6:00am to 6:00am measurements is fine but are not what most folks expect. As mentioned above, the 6:00am measurements from yesterday showed 2.4 inches of snow in Denver but obviously more than that fell throughout the day. We feel that providing a total measurement for the day the snow actually feel is more in line with what folks expect and think of.