2006 Colorado Holiday Blizzards

A subsequent storm, narrower in scope, struck the area less than a week after the second blizzard, further hampering removal efforts and travel in the region.

Due to the previous heavy snowfalls and lack of snow removal on many residential streets (still nearly impassable from the first storm) were unmanageable.

However, this storm slipped south and hit the Southeastern Colorado Plains, Kansas and the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles with severe wind and snow conditions.

Due to DIA's remote location, many people were forced to spend the night inside the airport, sleeping on cots or the floor.

Holiday Blizzard I was focused mainly on the Colorado Front Range, resulting in far smaller snow totals for the mountain ski resorts.

The first blizzard began early on Wednesday December 20, 2006, as a storm blew through the eastern plains of Colorado spilling as much as two feet of snow up and down Interstate-25, from Fort Collins to Pueblo.

Downtown Denver, in particular, experienced severe economic hardships as a result since so many paths were not clear for potential customers, but it was the same throughout many places.

Many roads throughout the state were impassable, schools and other community functions were canceled immediately, and the general public of Colorado was snowed in.

The Holiday Blizzards were followed by an additional storm bearing more than a foot of snow on January 4–5, bringing the snowfall total for 16 days to more than 80 inches (2.0 m) in some areas.

[6] Overall, National Guard units, including ones from Wyoming and Oklahoma, dropped feed to an estimated 345,000 cattle stranded by ten foot drifts.

[4] Many of the side streets in Denver remained covered in snow which turned to thick ice due to continued residential traffic.