May blizzard smacks Vail, closes roads and cancels activities
10 inches of snowfall closes I-70 over Vail Pass for about six hours
John LaConte/Vail Daily
The town of Vail was blanketed with 10 inches of snow on Tuesday as a winter storm system moved through the area, closing Interstate 70 for about six hours.
After reopening, the eastbound lanes of I-70 closed again just after 4 p.m. Tuesday as a result of unsafe conditions.
Colorado State Patrol Trooper Gabriel Moltrer said the closure occurred at mile marker 180 at 9:26 a.m. due to vehicle crashes that had occurred there.
Moltrer said the State Patrol in that area was using a protocol called “accident alert” as heavy snowfall blanketed the area. In an accident alert protocol event, when a non-serious injury or fatal crash occurs, the State Patrol asks drivers to submit an accident counter report online, rather than having an on-duty trooper respond.
Moltrer said numerous accidents had been submitted through the counter-reporting system on Tuesday.
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In Vail, the Vail Recreation District canceled soccer practice and other activities taking place on outdoor fields in Vail parks.
Hiking or skinning up Vail Mountain is currently not allowed per Vail Resorts policy.
“At this time, the mountain is closed for uphill travel access,” said Rachel Levitsky, the senior communications manager for Vail Mountain. “We also encourage all guests to call the Uphill Travel Hotline before accessing the mountain at any time: 970-754-3049.”
Levitsky also pointed guests to Vail’s multi-use mountain page on vail.com.
The storm slows a melt which had caused the snow-water equivalent on Vail Mountain to dip below average in recent days as sunny skies had a shrinking effect on the area’s snowpack.
Snow-water equivalent is the amount of water within the snow, calculated by measuring snow depth and density. It’s monitored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture using snow telemetry (SNOTEL) sites, one of which is located on Vail Mountain.
The agency monitors snow-water equivalent to improve predictions of streamflow for the following spring and summer, and spring months like May — and spring storms like Tuesday’s — can make a major difference in how the water year will turn out.
After recording a slightly above-average reading on Vail’s closing day, the snowpack recording sensors at the USDA’s SNOTEL site on Vail Mountain showed Vail to have 16.3 inches of snow-water equivalent on Monday. That’s 88.5% of the 30-year average for May 6.
On Tuesday, however, that reading jumped up to 16.8 inches, or 91% of average.
The National Weather Service on Tuesday said that number was likely to keep climbing throughout Tuesday, with a Winter Weather Advisory for the general area of the Gore Range in effect until 10 p.m. on Tuesday.
The National Weather Service’s Grand Junction office said cool and unsettled weather will linger through the remainder of the week, “with a series of disturbances keeping chances of light mountain showers in the forecast most afternoons.”
