Re: Colorado Elk ....
Well Colorado is a fun state to be a weather person,
Denver is butted up against the Eastern slope of the Rockies in a hole, from Denver in all directions you actually go up in elevation but to the west and the south you go up much more, west is the Rockies and the Continental Divide but to the south is the Palmer Divide, much lower then the Continental Divide but the Palmer Divide consistently causes Low Pressure systems based over the New Mexico/Colorado border to pulverize me! call it a natural funnel low pressure wraps up into Denver and then hits a road block on two fronts where the moisture simply cannot get out so I get plastered, right now they are saying 15"-18" possible for me with 12" possible for Denver Metro, Winter Storm Warning from 9PM tonight until about midnight Tomorrow night.
on the other side of the coin these storms typically don't do much to the mountains on the west side of the Continental Divide, of course this is relative as the Mountains are pretty used to getting 15" dumps where as the Front Range considers this a pretty big deal, add to that the temperature, the trees here still have leaves on them, when combined with a wet heavy fall snow you get HUGE tree damage!
Sorry if I presented to much Info, I'm a weather junkie