Over A Foot Of May Snow Blanketed The Rockies. That's Not As Unusual As It Sounds.

It's May, But Snow Is Still Falling

Heavy snow has blanketed parts of the Rockies and while that would be bizarre most everywhere else in the U.S. in May, it's typical in parts of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.

Over A Foot In Some Areas

The snow started in the Rockies this past weekend and continued through Wednesday.

Tuesday evening, 32 to 36 inches of snow was reported at Upper Luna Canyon in northern New Mexico. Earlier in the day, 20 to 22 inches of snowfall was tallied up at Taos Ski Valley, an area about 70 miles northeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In Colorado, 31 inches of snow was reported near Pikes Peak, almost 20 inches piled up near St. Mary's Glacier and from 1 to 5 inches of wet snow was reported on the north side of Colorado Springs near the Air Force Academy and Monument Hill.

Utah's Alta-Collins snow stake reported 8 inches of snow Tuesday morning. Ten inches of snow was estimated in central Montana's mountains near the town of Neihart Monday morning. In Wyoming, snow fell at elevations as low as 5,500 feet in both Lander and at the National Weather Service's Riverton office Tuesday. And in Colorado, 5 inches of snow was reported in Woodland Park, in the high country northwest of Colorado Springs.

Where May Snow Is Typical

But as you can see on the map below in large pink circles, there are several locations in the Rockies, Sierra, even Upper Michigan, where the last snow of the season happens in May, on average.

For example, Red River, New Mexico, averages 6.2 inches of snow each May. Again, that's typical, there. Their heaviest May snowstorm was a whopping 27 inches from May 7-8, 1936, according to NOAA statistics.

As senior meteorologist Chris Dolce wrote in a previous piece, California's Donner Summit had its heaviest 24-hour snowfall of the entire 2023-24 winter season last May, when they picked up 26.4 inches of snow.

And this may not be it for snow this season. Forecast models suggest more mountain snow is possible in the Cascades, Sierra and Rockies next week.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.