Update: Dangerous Cold & Snowfall Report

Last night's Arctic cold front swept in even faster and more ferociously than expected. Temperatures dropped from the low 40s to the mid 20s in about 10 minutes around 11pm Saturday night. By midnight, it was snowing fairly heavily, with temperatures area-wide into the teens.

Believe it or not, I actually subtracted 5-7 degrees from the computer models, thinking they weren't picking up on the magnitude of the extreme cold, but I should have subtracted more like 10 or 15 degrees, because that's about how far off (too warm) they were.

By dawn Sunday most locations were near ZERO degrees, some 10+ degrees colder than the computer models thought it would be. And temperatures are holding steady or even dropping during the afternoon Sunday, meaning that today's daylight highs will be within a few degrees of zero in most locations -- a whopping 60 degrees colder than this same time yesterday.

Last night, I predicted 2-5" of snowfall; here are some official area snowfall totals:

• Boulder - 3.6"
• Arvada - 4"
• Longmont - 3"
• Broomfield - 3.9"
• Denver - 2.3"
  

As for the forecast for the next 24-48 hours: DANGEROUSLY COLD.

Sunday night:

• Becoming mostly clear with calm winds
• Lows will range from -5 to -15

Monday:

• Bitterly cold at wake up, with temperatures around -10
• Mostly sunny skies will "warm" afternoon highs to around 15

Monday night:

• Becoming mostly cloudy; 50/50 shot light snow (1-2"?)
• Overnight lows from ZERO to 5 above

Tuesday:

• Mostly cloudy with slight chance of snow showers
• Not as bitterly cold, with highs ~ 25