COLORADO, USA — The peaks of the Colorado high country got a light coating of snow overnight Wednesday. It wasn’t much, but it was the first dusting of the season.
The snow was widespread, hitting several Colorado mountain ranges. Most of the areas received less than 2 inches.
This first dusting came a little later than it has the past few years.
Last year our first mountain snow came on August 17; powder was spotted on Mt. Evans and Loveland Pass.
In 2017, several inches fell on top of Pikes Peak on August 10.
There have been other years when the first mountain snow didn't come until September, but most of the time it happens in August. There is no teleconnection between early snow and the rest of the season.
The early snows in 2017 and 2018 lead to early snow in Denver. Both years it snowed on the Mile High City before the average date of October 18. The snow seasons that followed in the mountains were polar opposites: high snowpack last year and low snowpack in 2017.
The first snow is not the only weather to lag in Colorado this year. The last snow didn't happen until the first weekend of summer.
Baseball size hail hit Colorado on Wednesday. That's nothing new for September, but still quite unusual.
And how about the heat? Denver and other areas on the Front Range are still chasing a record-breaking warm September, even after the first snow up in the mountains.
One of the next weather milestones will be snow in metro areas. Will that also be delayed? The computer models say maybe not, hinting at an erratic jet stream pattern that may allow us to sneak in that first snow before that October 18 first snowfall average.
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