Blizzard Rages Across Rockies, Buries 1 Town

A small Colorado town was buried under five feet of snow, and a New Mexico town was virtually cut off today as a ferocious winter storm howled through the Rockies, whipping up strong gusts that dropped windchill readings to a dangerous 70 degrees below zero.

“That is an incredible amount of snow,” National Weather Service forecaster Paul Fike said, referring to the 60 inches dumped in the rural town of Rye in southern Colorado.

“We’re fast running out of any place to put it,” Rye Fire Chief Charles Terrill said. “Everyone is just staying put and digging out today.”

No major problems were reported in the rural community with a population of about 200, despite the worst storm there since 1957.

‘I Really Like the Weather’

“I moved to Rye because I really like the weather here, but I never counted on this,” said resident Kim Barickman, 34, who described the snowfall as chin-deep. “This is a sight. Nobody’s going to believe this.”

The storm spread snow this morning over sections of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. Temperatures were below zero from Montana to Minnesota, but strong wind gusts knocked the windchill factor to an unbearable 70 degrees below zero at Vedauwoo, Wyo.

Other bitter windchill readings included 50 below zero in Colorado and 30 below in the Dakotas and Idaho.

In New Mexico, more than three feet of snow fell near Los Alamos, and state police said the city was virtually cut off because of snow-packed roads.

17 Inches in Denver

“We’re turning back all traffic on State Highway 4 into Los Alamos, where they’ve had three feet of snow since midnight and it’s still snowing heavily,” state police dispatcher Judy Miller said.

The storm had dumped 17 inches of snow by this morning in the Denver area, where many schools were forced to close for the second straight day. Shelters for the homeless were filled to capacity overnight as temperatures dropped as low as 10 degrees below zero.

As much as four inches of snow blanketed the Texas Panhandle by early morning, and icy roads were blamed for the death of a motorist in Lubbock County, where sleet turned roads and highways into sheets of ice.

“We’ve had a lot of accidents, so many that we haven’t got a count yet,” said police dispatcher Georgeanne White.

High-wind warnings were posted for Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, where gusts were expected to howl at 90 m.p.h.