Fall is here, Winter is not far away

Today is the first full day of Fall and you can definitely tell, especially if you’ve been in the high country.

The leaves are changing and that means that the cold and snow are not far behind.

The aspens are the first sign that its coming. They seem to almost be screaming: “caution winter ahead”.

But before the snow flies we get a few weeks of the golds and reds of the season.

Fall is definitely a transition time for our area. The average high in Colorado Springs drops 30 degrees between the first day of Fall and first day of Winter in December. In Pueblo, the drop is 34 degrees!

While we can’t say for sure when it will happen, one thing that we can definitely say is that there will be freezing temperatures.

Mark Wankowski a forecaster at the National Weather Service in Pueblo said, “(Colorado) Springs is around the first of October and Pueblo is October 8th.”

Contrary to what some might believe, the fact that it was a wet summer doesn’t necessarily translate to a wet winter.

“There has been no correlation between…wet summers and wet winters,” said Wankowski.

National Weather Service forecasters are calling for an El Nino winter. So what does that mean for our area?

Wankowski said, “we see cooler and wetter conditions over the southern United States and an enhanced storm track over the southern United States and that just kind of translates into Southern Colorado.”

So will there be more cold and snow than in year’s past? That depends on where you’re at in the area.

“We usually see greater chances for snowfall in the San Juans (Mountains), the southeastern mountains and the southeast plains,” said Wankowski.

So are you ready? Because winter will be here – sooner or later.