Our news team was busy covering missing hikers in the Pikes Peak area this evening. Law enforcement told us that the hikers were reportedly not dressed appropriately. With colder weather coming for the fall months, it’s important to dress appropriately and keep safety priority number one when heading out for a hike. Click here for some tips from the Forest Service.

Temperatures for Monday are going to be a little bit cooler due to a cold front that came in late Sunday afternoon. But ahead of our next cold front, we can expect Tuesday to be pretty warm and windy. There is a Fire Weather Watch in effect from Tuesday afternoon through Tuesday evening for West Central and Southwest Colorado below 8500ft. The reason is low humidities and gusty winds ahead of our next system that will drop temperatures significantly by Thursday. There will also be a chance for some snow in the high country. However, this appears to be a very quick moving system and should be out of here by Friday leaving little to no time for accumulation.

Just a few screen shots from our Neighborhood Weather Network, pretty stuff out there!

Well, most of us can agree we that we like to see the first snowfall of the year up on the ski slopes…it means time to think about sharpening edges or buying some new toys and usually commences snowmaking in earnest at the ski resorts…

…but snow locally on the last day of summer? My guess is, and from what many of you have told me today, thoughts vary about it locally. Today’s bursts of snow not only affected some travel in the local mountain communities (CDOT reported hazardous conditions on Hwy 67 between Cripple Creek and Divide for most of the afternoon) but shut Berthoud Pass down from before 1pm until 10 at night as a tanker truck rolled on its side and tossed 40,000 gallons of fuel on the highway.

Started out looking pretty nice in some areas, check out the view from Westcliffe this morning…

Of course we have had some snow, and rain, and graupel (snow pellets, small hail) and everything else, here’s a shot froma very wintry looking Cripple Creek!

Wasn’t too long though before the snow was flying over the high country, and the rain was moving over us.  REAL-TIME TRAVEL TRACKER picks up the snow via the cameras and the road conditions as reported by CDOT, you’ll see us using this more often soon…

I’m adding onto what Josh wrote this morning. The lastest futurecast models show snow over Teller County and a mix of rain and snow over the Palmer Divide. A few inches could accumulate mainly on grassy surfaces in Teller County. I don’t think we will see any snow stick on the pavement, but even in Colorado Springs (mainly on the north side of town), we could have heavy snow that might reduce visibilities for a brief time. The best chance for heavy pockets of snow in the Pikes Peak Region looks to be between 8am and 1pm.

Monday is the last day of summer with fall officially arriving Tuesday afternoon. It looks like we’ll be saying goodbye to the summer months with a shot of cold air that will head into southern Colorado throughout the day Monday.

Temperatures will drop off about 30 degrees from Sunday’s highs and we’ll likely see accumulating snow at the higher elevations (above 9000 ft.), a rain/snow mix above 7000 ft., and rain at the lower elevations as this area of low pressure settles into the region over the next couple of days.

Of course, snow isn’t unheard of in September around here. In fact, we’ve had over a foot of snow in late September in Colorado Springs (13.6″, Sept. 29, 1959) with that same system bringing 9.5″ the same day in Pueblo. While we’re talking about snow, the earliest snowfall in Pueblo came September 17, 1971 (7.3″) with .2″ of snow falling August 29, 1952 in Colorado Springs and 4.2″ in the Springs on September 3, 1961.

Rain vision shows that the northwest side of town had quite a bit of rain (the yellow area is the very SE part of the Air Force Academy and indicates 3″) while most areas had little to none. The graphic above left shows that not only did heavy rain occur at the Academy and in Peregrine and Rockrimmon, but at least a couple homes had some very large hail as well. The 1.5″ hail was very localized as most areas had quite a bit of hail that was on the order of .33″-.75″ as the two pictures below indicate.

I caught strikes from Pueblo West, Pueblo, Cripple Creek (both cameras), 8th Street and Abbot and Briargate tonight. But the best images by far were from Canon City where we got more than a half inch of rain with the evening storms.

Briargate got hit pretty good in the afternoon with quite a bit of 1″ hail and rain on some streets equaling more than an inch.

While many of us had quite a bit of rain Saturday at the lower elevations, several of our mountain tops got some snow. Here’s a look at some shots from the Neighborhood Weather Network and also from the summit cam the City of Colorado Springs has at the top of Pikes Peak.

Is it just me or does it seem like we are saying goodbye to summer without ever really saying hello?