Update, 5:00 PM: Snowfall has lightened up, visibility has improved to nearly normal, heavy gusts of wind are far less frequent. We have just under a feet of snow, which indicates that the heaviest precipitation occurred this morning. But it hasn’t stopped. And with a layer of ice under much of the snow, it will be awhile before travel is back to normal.

Today is suitable for a little random weather blogging here in central Arvada … Snow started falling at sometime around 6 AM. I’ve spent the morning working inside, but ventured outside at high noon.

Observations: Blowing snow (heavy at times), visibility is about 100 feet or so (occasionally much less than that), the nearby side streets are barely passable for standard 2-wheel drive vehicles, traffic is exceptionally light and generally slow-going. Outside our house we have 8 inches of snow on the ground, with a few drifts over a foot deep. No sign of letting up. I’m happy to be inside today.

As bad as this storm is, so far it pales in the inevitable comparisons to the December 2006 blizzard and especially to the March 2003 monster snow (we had more than 50 inches outside our Golden apartment).

Mr. Bob has some downtown Denver snow pics from this morning … nothing too substantial yet.