We were holding out hope that a change in the weather pattern would mean the talk of snow early next week would dissipate.
Fuggedaboutit. It’s happening.
Wyoming weatherman Don Day gave us absolutely no hope on Friday afternoon as he killed the thought of a reprieve from the wintry grim reaper.
“Our confidence in snowfall on Monday and Tuesday keeps growing,” Day said. “We have a pattern setting up that’s going to cut a lot of Canadian air loose out of the Northwest Territories straight south into Wyoming on Monday night and Tuesday.”
Day said the storm was a “good news, bad news” situation as the fire season will likely end as a result of the storm but so will the growing season.
“This will be a very impactful storm. Because it’s so early in the season, we have a lot of leaves on the trees. The storm could bring some branches down.”
Day said the entire state will be affected by the storm but mountainous areas, locations around the I-25 corridor, and the higher elevations on I-80 (of course, Laramie) will be the hardest hit.
“The crazy thing is all of this is gonna be preceded by some very hot temperatures through the weekend,” he said. “I mean, we’re going to have temperatures in the 80s and 90s. And 36 hours later, we’ll be in the teens and 20s.”
Not all areas of the state will receive measurable snow. Day said locations under 5,000 feet should expect rain and, at worst, a rain/snow mix.
Although rare, wintry patterns at this time year have happened before in Wyoming.
Day points back to 1985 when only six weeks after a devastating flood hit Cheyenne on August 1, the capital city received 10 inches of snow.
Although we can all feel sorry for ourselves, perhaps we should save some empathy for Laramie. After all, their summer was really short.
Day recalled that Laramie got hit by a fluke snowstorm this year on June 8. That storm dumped 10 inches on the community.
“Laramie will only go 90 days between snowstorms this year,” he said. “Talk about a short growing season. This is truly 2020.”
