Winter Weather Alert for 8 States

Winter weather alerts are in place for parts of eight states as a mix of snow and rain begins to wind down over Western states.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued advisories for Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota and Wyoming. Warnings are also in place for Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.

In its latest forecast, the NWS said that the late winter precipitation that arrived over the West through the weekend was anticipated to ease off, with mountain snow coming to a close on Monday and lower elevation rain ending by Tuesday morning.

However, the meteorological agency said light to moderate snow would develop over parts of the northern and central Plains on Monday and end later the same evening.

The same time last week, a swath of the Plains into the Great Lakes was emerging from another storm front that brought heavy snow and blizzard conditions, after dumping heavy rains on the West Coast.

Additional accumulations of 15 inches of snow are forecast for mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona, with some areas above 8,000 expected to see up to 18 inches, along with winds as high as 50 miles an hour.

Snowfall will continue into west and north central New Mexico, where up to six inches is predicted along with winds as high as 40 miles an hour. In the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, in excess of a foot of snow could fall over peaks in New Mexico, rising to 15 inches in Colorado.

In the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, up to 15 inches of snow is also expected, with winds of up to 60 miles an hour, with up to 10 inches in the Wet Mountains.

Across northwestern Nebraska, up to four inches of snow is forecast until Monday afternoon. In southwestern South Dakota, up to five inches of snow is expected.

Moving into central and north central Wyoming, up to five inches of snow is anticipated in parts, apart from in the southern Bighorn Mountains, where six inches is expected.

Up to two inches of snow is also predicted for the Beartooth and Red Lodge foothills in southern Montana.

Western states have already faced several bouts of snowfall so far this winter, having been subjected to a “prolific series” of atmospheric river storms from the Pacific.

In March, a powerful winter storm from the Pacific brought in excess of 12 feet of snow to the Sierra Nevada range, as well as several feet of snow and blizzard conditions to higher-elevation regions of neighboring states.

Another winter storm made landfall earlier the same week before moving into the Intermountain West, bringing intense snowfall from Utah to Wyoming and Colorado.