Dangerous, gusty winds today were causing whiteouts east of the Continental Divide and blowing over semi-trucks in Wyoming, but Summit County was spared the worst of it.
Local winds hit 66 miles per hour just after sunrise at the top of Peak 8 above Breckenridge. By mid-afternoon they tapered off to 35 miles per hour at Peak 8 and 43 miles per hour at Loveland Pass.
Gusts picked up strength as they moved east from the Continental Divide, blowing 47 miles per hour at Berthoud Pass and 76 miles per hour at Kenosha Pass on U.S. 285.
Both directions of U.S. 285 shut down around 7 a.m. between Fairplay and Grant for debilitating whiteouts. As of 4 p.m. the road has not reopened.
One resident puts this closure in perspective, writing on the Park County Sheriff’s Facebook page, “Think three feet of windblown snow going sideways and obscuring the road! Yesterday when I drove it there were places where I could barely see where the road was! It’s pretty scary!”
Winds were even scarier just north of Colorado on the Wyoming plains. Wyoming Highway Patrol shared a photo of a capsized semi-truck on U.S. Highway 85 near Laramie, blown over by gusts up to 90 miles per hour. The driver escaped unharmed.
“This windstorm is no joke,” WHP writes on Facebook. “Please stay off the road if your vehicle is less than 60,000 lbs. gross weight. Mother Nature tends to show who’s boss during these events, and it’s not us.”
I-25 and I-80 in Wyoming remain closed to high-profile vehicles. A high wind warning is good through midnight tonight, mostly on north of I-70 and east of the Continental Divide.
