A powerful winter storm system Monday kicked off a week of expected wild weather in Colorado, hammering Colorado Springs with hurricane-force winds that uprooted trees and forced Fort Carson soldiers to shelter in place, and dumping so much snow in the high country that a ski area had to close. On the Western Slope, a state snowplow slid off a roadway in freezing rain and a 40-mile stretch of mountain passes was shuttered because of skier-triggered and natural avalanches. “You only get this set of systems every few years,” said Todd Dankers, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Boulder.
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