Wednesday Night Storm Will Likely Produce A Very Tight Gradient In Denver Area Snow Totals

DENVER (CBS4) - A classic March snowstorm is on the way to Colorado's Front Range for Wednesday night and Thursday morning. It will begin with rain developing sometime during the afternoon before mixing with and changing to snow between 7 p.m. and midnight.

Snow totals are always a challenge to predict in the Denver area thanks to the very complex terrain. But this storm will be extra challenging because it won't be terribly cold. When storms don't have a lot of cold air associated with them we see a bigger than normal range of snow totals due to subtle changes in elevation.

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Storms like the one approaching for Wednesday night usually produce what we call a sharp (or tight) gradient in meteorology. A gradient is a change in something over distance, such as temperature or rain and snow totals. The more abrupt that change, the sharper the gradient is. Abrupt elevation drops between cities like Boulder and Firestone can often lead to one location with several inches of snow and the other with little to none.

Another great example is between downtown Denver and southeast Aurora, which sits about 700 feet higher. It doesn't sound like much but when it comes to the rain-snow line, it can make a huge difference.

The big winners from this storm should be those with an elevation above 6,000 feet, which includes the Foothills west of Denver and the Palmer Divide to the south. Some places in the foothills of Jefferson County, Park County and Douglas County could see snow amounts in excess of 10 inches.

As you move north and east of downtown Denver the snow totals will be significantly less, and in some cases, there may be little to no accumulation. One big wild card with potential snow totals is going to be the timing of when rain changes to snow. The longer that process takes, the lower the snow totals will be. If it is a fast switch from rain to snow then totals could be higher.