KUSA - After very strong winds along the Front Range on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the wind will finally start decreasing Thursday afternoon.

Wind gusts over 100 mph were recorded Wednesday evening northwest of Berthoud. This is the equivalent of a Category Two Hurricane.



A HIGH WIND WARNING is in effect until noon on Thursday for the Front Range from Monument Hill north into Wyoming.

9NEWS Meteorologist Ashton Altieri says that wind gusts could still approach 50 miles per hour in the metro area and 70 mph in the foothills. This includes Boulder and surrounding communities.

Light snow that has been falling in the northern and central mountains will end by early Thursday afternoon. Some areas have seen as much as 6 inches of snow since Wednesday night.

Strong winds caused havoc across the metro area on Wednesday, including at least one injury in Aurora, a power outage in downtown Denver, and flight cancellations at DIA.

The driver of a car was injured when some building material blew off a roof on the Fitzsimons complex, according to the Aurora Fire Department.

The debris landed on the car, knocking the driver unconscious. The victim was taken to a local hospital for treatment, the Aurora Fire Department says.

100-mile-an-hour winds in Silverthorne overnight Wednesday had many residents trying to reach their insurance companies Thursday morning.

The high winds uprooted trees, smashing them into windows, on top of roofs and onto cars.

Limbs even wrapped around some decks and ripped through boards, which caused what appeared to be extensive damage.

The high winds also blew out windows in several homes in the area.

Damage totals were still being tallied Thursday morning.

No injuries have been reported, but an extensive amount of damage was reported at the Frisco Nordic Center and at the Peak One Campground near the Dillon Reservoir.

Xcel Energy crews were out Wednesday night restoring power to residents in the Denver metro area.

According to Mark Stuz from Xcel, from about 10:00 p.m. Wednesday until 3:00 a.m. Thursday, Xcel had outages in Boulder, Lakewood, Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, Summit County and the San Luis Valley.

All but about 400 customers have had their power restored. Xcel says those customers should be taken care of by noon Thursday. There were a total of 3,500 outages during the day Wednesday.

Also overnight Thursday, 22,000 customers in Boulder were without power. All but a few pockets have had power restored.

Xcel crews will be out doing clean-up work Thursday.

In downtown Denver, power was lost for about 20 minutes just after noon Wednesday.

Denver Health Medical Center lost power during the outage, but Xcel Energy was able to quickly fix the problem.

The winds also caused problems at Denver International Airport on Wednesday afternoon. American, Frontier, Delta and United Airlines all cancelled some flights. The flights were cancelled after delays caused by ramp holds by the FAA.

Authorities say if you are flying, you should call ahead to check the status of your flight.

You can also visit DIA's Web site at www.flydenver.com.

The high winds in the mountains also forced authorities to close Mt. Evans Road.