It's Not Over Until We Say Its Over!

For Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, Mother Nature is pulling a Bluto Blutarski and declaring that winter is "nothing is over until we decide it is!"  Warning, the clip above includes strong language, but also a good history lesson.

The calendar may say May 12th, but a major winter storm has just rumbled through the central Rockies. Below are some daily snowfall observations provided to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, & Snow Network (a.k.a., CoCoRaHS) this morning in Colorado.  Accumulations in Denver area of up 9 inches, in the front range of up to 20 inches, and near Kremmling in Grand County of up to 22 inches.

Source: CoCoRaHS

Ah, spring in the Rockies.  As Al Pacino said in the Godfather, "just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in!."  It will be interesting to see the storm totals as snow is still falling in places.

The average monthly snowfall in Denver features a peak of 11.5 inches in March, with April being the 2nd snowiest month.  So, the area is no stranger to late season storms and some of their biggest events have come in the spring.  Although their May average is only 1.7 inches, if one peruses the climate record, one can find that May snow is episodic, but over their long period of record there's on average a 1 in 7 chance of observing 5 inches of snow or more in May.

Utah of course got some too, including 9 inches in Cedar City and presumably some decent amounts in the upper elevations of central and eastern Utah, although I haven't had a chance to comb through the SNOTEL data to get some numbers (feel free to comment and add them if you take a look).  

Temperatures in the upper-elevations of the Wasatch remained quite cool yesterday and diehards will probably find some pretty good bluebird turns this morning before the sun does its damage.