Having plans to head back to Missouri this morning, we left Denver under cloudy skies with little warning of what would soon change our plans. By the time we reached the east side of town, flashing highway signs warned that Interstate 70 was closed, all the way to the Kansas border.
A detour to the south was considered, but snow and high winds had also closed Interstate 25 at the Palmer Divide, between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs. In both cases, the amount of snow was not excessive but the high winds created blinding conditions for drivers. Counterclockwise winds around another potent storm system, centered over northwest Missouri this morning, were augmented by clockwise winds around high pressure to our north.
Returning to our Littleton farm, we hoped that conditions might improve by afternoon but, as I write this post, sections of I-70 remain closed; indeed, during the peak of the storm, most of the Interstate between Denver and Salina, Kansas, was shut down. Though we almost always pay close attention to weather on the Great Plains before planning to cross them, we were clueless this morning and will have to delay our journey until tomorrow.
