For 12/22/09: For Today: This snow has chocked up on us as the energy from the west has settled much further into our area than expected for today. Regional radar is showing a fairly impressive front end starting to establish itself over western Colorado this morning and we will see the first flakes by mid morning. It looks like this abbreviated schedule will offer the best chance at snow for today and tomorrow before we end up in a dirty western flow offering just scattered showers.

Overnight lows were moderated by this cloud cover and Crested Butte reported a balmy 6 degrees this morning while even Gunnison stayed above 0 at 4 degrees. Daytime highs will pop up with the initial blast of warmer southern air from this system hitting the mid to high 20’s for all elevations but look for that to be short lived dropping again as a colder front settles in. At least for tonight we will see more mild temperatures as the snow continues hovering in the high single digits.

The brunt of this storm will be playing out through the next 48 hours with everything after that looking unorganized. It’s moving faster than expected and snow estimates may have to be toned down but the National Weather Service has upped there watch to a warning so we’ll have to see how it shakes out early today. Pack layers because we are in for some changes.

Look for a complete Crested Butte and Gunnison weather report, 24 hour trends and real time weather information now available at WWW.CBTV.TV.