I70 from Utah to Denver on Nov 25th? dangerous

[field & stream]

Originally Posted by uncle_bob

Hi

Ok, a quick primer:

There's a Wonderful thing a lot of us get to ignore. It's called the snow line. Above that altitude on this day / that storm, you get snow. Down here in the lowlands you get rain.

Denver is way down low at ~5,000 feet, I-70 as it goes over the mountains is at ~11,000 feet. If you loose between 3 an 4 degrees per thousand feet, It's 18 to 24 degrees colder "up there" than down in low lying Denver. It easily can be snowing like crazy up at Vail (there on I-70) and raining in Denver.

Yes, that's the abbreviated version. Just like any other weather tidbit, there's a whole lot more to it.

The point being that, the *general* forecast* might be warm-ish and rain. The specific forecast for that part of I-70 might be a foot of two of snow.

Bob

That is a most excellent point! And it is why you must rely on the road conditions websites at least as much as the weather.

[JeffKim]

Originally Posted by benclear

How did the trip go? Did you learn anything useful about making the trip at that time?

I was wondering too. Is it time to unleash the St. Bernard with the brandy?

[kayaktom]

I don't know about the original poster, but I changed my plans based on the forecasted snow storm that was heading to Moab and the I-70 corridor on Thanksgiving and the following two days. Instead of heading from Grand Junction to Moab (Dead Horse Point), we went back over the passes east to the Denver area and spent several days in sub-freezing, snowy temps, and I'm glad we didn't have to travel Thanksgiving weekend!

The posts here were helpful, and we've adjusted our plans again since then based on snow in Santa Fe, NM. Instead we headed farther south. It's pretty, but I sure don't want to drive in it.

BTW, even on the Wed. before Thanksgiving there were icy spots on bridges in some of the canyons on I-70 and we sat for an hour just behind a one-car rollover on a bridge. It was a sunny day with temps in the 50s! We towed both directions on I-70 in the span of a week and careful planning, flexibility and paying attention to the weather was the key. Thanks to whomever shared Kody the Weather Guy - that was super helpful and very accurate.