DENVER (KDVR) — Parts of Colorado’s mountains have seen several feet of snowfall over the last seven days.
These large totals are thanks to an atmospheric river bringing high amounts of Pacific moisture to the Western U.S.
Some ski resorts in the San Juan Mountains, like Purgatory and Silverton, picked up more than 5 feet of snow in just seven days.
This snow has aided in boosting Colorado’s snowpack to 118% of the average. That’s great news for the state that still has drought in many areas. Southeastern Colorado still has below-average snowpack but the rest of the state has well above-average totals.
There’s no doubt that snowfall is a good thing for Colorado, but it does come with an increase in avalanche danger.
Because of multiple rounds of snowfall in the mountains recently, avalanche warnings have been in place on and off for the last couple of weeks.