Huge snow totals reported in West as another storm looms

Tuesday night will bring a new round of snowy weather for parts of the U.S. after other parts of the West were left buried under several feet of snow over the weekend.

The latest batch of wintry weather is heading for the Pacific Northwest. In the past week, the nation's first major snowstorm of the winter season left behind mounds of heavy, wet snow in portions of Colorado and New Mexico.

How much snow fell? Several ski areas in the mountains of the two states picked up as much as 3-4 feet of snow, as did portions of the eastern Plains of Colorado.

In fact, some counties in the Plains of Colorado were buried under between 30 to 42 inches of snow, averaging 3 feet overall, David Barjenbruch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Boulder office, told the Denver Post. “This is one that will be remembered for a while,” he said.

Huge snowfall totals reported

The highest reported snowfall total was 54.9 inches at a location 7 miles northwest of San Isabel, Colorado (southwest of Pueblo), the National Weather Service said.

And with 20 inches of snow, Denver recorded its third-biggest November snowstorm on record, the biggest since 1983.?

Elsewhere, New Mexico's Colfax County was blanketed in 40 inches of snow, while parts of Albuquerque received 7.5 inches of snow. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a state of emergency, unlocking $1.5 million in state funding to support agencies responding to the winter storm.

More snow on the way

On Tuesday, the National Weather Service warned that "another Pacific frontal system and accompanying atmospheric river will approach the West, bringing a wave of Pacific moisture and triggering increasingly heavier lower elevation/coastal rain and higher elevation mountain snow."

The system will move inland, bringing an expanding area of high-elevation mountain snow to northern California and a wintry mix into the northern Rockies and Great Basin through Wednesday.

In Northern California, AccuWeather said that most of the accumulating snow will fall above the crest of Donner Pass, along I-80. Still, there can be a period from Thursday night to Friday when the air will get cold enough for accumulating snow to fall over the pass causing slow and slippery travel, AccuWeather said.?

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Huge snow totals reported in West as another storm looms in forecast