Colorado Avalanches At "Historic" Levels; Slam Onto Highway, Hit Cars: Scary Videos

An avalanche begins to engulf Interstate 70 in Colorado
a few days ago. Nobody was hurt.

UPDATE 3 PM 3/7/19

The avalanche situation in Colorado has definitely worsened since Tuesday.

The National Weather Service in Denver/Boulder has an avalanche warning for most parts of the Colorado Rockies into Friday morning at least.

There's an extreme danger of avalanches in some of Colorado's mountainous regions. The NWS avalanche warning doesn't kid around: "We may see avalanches of historic size. These avalanches will be very destructive and may run to the valley bottoms."

That warning is important, because usually, Rocky Mountain avalanches usually largely stop before reaching valley floors, where most people are. So this goes beyond the usual danger avalanches pose to backcountry skiers and hikers most winters.

The danger is particularly acute today after a series of intense storms dumped up to two feet of dense snow atop lighter, more powdery snow. This makes the snow pack very unstable. Strong winds are blowing across Colorado's mountains today, making things all that much worse.

The Denver Post reports that this is the worst winter in decades for avalanche danger in Colorado.

"'We are seeing avalanches run longer than thehy have in 50 years in some cases,' said Spencer Logan, an avalanche forecaster for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. 'We've gotten a lot of snow on the mountains and it is starting to come down,'" says the Denver Post.

Another Colorado avalanche this week. Image via
Twitter from Denver 9News 

The Avalanche Center, known as CAIC, says there have been about 2,000 avalanches in Colorado this winter. In an average year, there are about 3,000 avalanches, but most of those occur in the spring when the snow is starting to melt.

That means when the current avalanche warning expires Friday, the risk is far from over. I'm sure there will be plenty more such warnings in Colorado during the coming weeks. Already six people have died in Colorado slides this winter.

Interstate 70 through the Colorado mountains is closed again today. In my earlier post, as you will see below under "Previous Discussion," the highway closed Sunday when avalanches struck vehicles on the road.  Interstate 70 closed again Tuesday while officials intentionally set of avalanches to help prevent larger more destructive ones from launching on their own.

But today, two giant avalanches near Vail and Copper Mountain closed Interstate 70 again today. The avalanche near Copper Mountain ruptured a gas line. The one near Vail hit a truck, but the driver was not injured and a tow truck pulled the vehicle out.

Parts of State Highways 91 and 24 were also closed because of avalanches or worries about them.

Some ski areas, like Breckenridge, closed upper mountains to skiers so that they will stay safe.

Colorado isn't the only place in trouble with avalanches. A snowmobile rider was killed Monday by an avalanche in Wyoming. The National Avalanche Center is showing lesser, but still considerable avalanche risks in parts of Utah, Idaho and California.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION 3/5/19

Several avalanches roared down from the mountains and onto Interstate 70 near Copper Mountain, Colorado in the past week.

At least two hit several cars along the highway, but spoiler alert: Nobody was hurt. Videos are below.

At least one pickup truck was pushed off the road, and several motorists had to crawl out of sunroofs or car windows to escape once the avalanches subsided.  Many of these motorists then had to spend hours digging out their cars to continue on their way.

Although avalanches in the mountains are fairly common, ones that impact highways are not. Colorado highway officials said these were the first avalanches to hit a major Colorado highway since 1983.

The Colorado Rockies have been hit by unusually heavy snowstorms in recent weeks, leading to the increased avalanches.

Colorado isn't the only state dealing with avalanches crashing down onto highways. In Idaho, a snow slide buried a one quarter mile long part of Route 21 between Lowman and Stanley beneath up to 40 feet of snow.  Nobody was hurt there, either.

A couple of dramatic videos from dash cams emerged from the Colorado avalanches. Scary!

Here's the first one:



Here's another, more expansive view from a motorist who avoided getting directly hit: