Winter wonderland, bird’s-eye view of Lyons (photos and statistics)
photographs by Ian Taylor (copyright 2023)
Let’s start the year with a Winter Update! Last year 2021, it was miserable; and we only saw 5” of snow by this time of the year. This winter season, Colorado had 25.2” (before this week’s storm) which is higher than the average of 20.0”. In October we just got a trace (which is unusually low;. in November 10.9”; and in December 13.0”. (Thanks to Channel 7 meteorologist Mike Nelson for the stats) By the way, November was the coldest in 22 years! Remember those below zero temperatures at night?
And January 2023, which is usually the 6th snowiest month of the year with an average of 6.5″ of snow, has already broken that record. This week, it broke the one day record on Wednesday, January 18, set 30 years ago. (Of course, this is based on the official reading near the Denver airport; and, not counting the snow in the ski resort towns which is often measured in feet during each snow fall).
While we were waiting on Tuesday/Wednesday for 6 to 11″ of snow, Lyons and the Front Range, and Denver only got 5 (to 6″) of snow. The airport got 7.7″ overnight, and 9.1″ total by the end of the day — which is very unusual for it to get more than the rest of the Front Range cities. The NE and SW were the heaviest hit with around a foot of snow on Tuesday night alone. The ski resorts continue to get snow by the foot, all winter. Per Vail’s snow count, they have 189″ of snow as of this week; with a base depth of 58″… yea, that’s 5 feet!
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