DENVER — While some Americans are gazing at tulips and mowing lawns, people in Colorado and Wyoming are getting out their snow shovels. A late snowstorm is set to sweep over the Rocky Mountains and High Plains, bringing rain that’s expected to turn to snow in the Denver area by Tuesday night, with up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) possible. Higher elevations might see as much as a foot (30 centimeters), the National Weather Service says. It could be Denver’s biggest snowfall of the season. “We just had our driest winter on record,” Kenley Bonner, a meteorologist in the weather service’s Denver office, said. “We were kind of joking earlier in the season that winter’s not going to come until spring, and it did exactly that.” Big snow and a fast drop in temperature The snow is expected to continue into Wednesday, followed by plunging temperatures and a widespread freeze overnight, the weather service said. All that heavy, wet snow could snap tree branches and knock out power, Bonner said.…