LITTLETON, Colo. – New Mexico and Colorado are getting snow from a winter storm that could be historic.
According to FOX Forecast Center, the storm will bring heavy snow to the mountains of New Mexico that hasn’t been seen in November in years.
Tomorrow into Saturday, it will make it impossible to drive on Interstate 25 and Interstate 40 in New Mexico.
The State Department of Transportation says that I-40 was already closed on Thursday north of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Over 100 cars were stuck on state roads Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.
Wednesday, parts of I-70 in Colorado were closed because of the same storm.
FOX Weather Meteorologist Stephen McCloud said, “By the time the storm is over, we could have as much as 6 feet of snow on the eastern slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.”
Thursday, the storm is also very strong in southern Colorado. South of Denver, in Littleton, Colorado, FOX Weather Meteorologist Craig Herrera saw light “champagne” flakes in the morning. He said that Saturday would bring heavier, wetter snow.
The New Mexico Department of Transportation closed the Raton Pass on Thursday afternoon. This is the part of I-25 that goes through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and connects New Mexico to Colorado.
The National Weather Service put out an Emergency Blizzard Warning for that area until Friday at 8 p.m. local time with the warning.
Craig Herrera, a meteorologist, thought that Sunday would be the best day to travel.
Power New Mexico, which is New Mexico’s biggest energy provider, said that the storm knocked out power across the whole state on Thursday. The company’s outage map showed that by the afternoon, at least 43 thousand users were having trouble. A lot of those problems didn’t have dates for when they would be fixed.
The Denver metro area didn’t get much snow on Thursday, but things are going to get worse from Thursday through Saturday as the storm moves back north. Friday night is supposed to be the biggest snowfall.
Source: Blizzard Warning issued as potentially historic winter storm slams New Mexico, Colorado
