Since August 15 we have only experienced five days with high temperatures under 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and only one of those days was below average for the date. All the others have been above average, and at times well above average.
Yesterday’s record of 97 degrees at Denver International Airport was a whopping 15 degrees above normal for this time of year.
With another scorcher on the way today, and only a few degrees cooler in the forecast for Sunday, you may be asking yourself if this will ever end. If so, you are in luck.
Temperatures for this coming week look to be dramatically cooler, with highs Tuesday forecast to be some 20 degrees cooler than our forecast highs today. The question will be just how good of a shot of cooler air we will get. High temperatures would likely be more or less 80, but a stronger shot could mean highs near 70 mid-week. For now, will go somewhere in the middle.
In addition to the cooler temperatures, expect an increased chance for showers and thunderstorms for the coming week. Our best shot at moisture appears to be Tuesday and Wednesday, but some models, such as the 12z GFS, try to keep a good amount of moisture in the area through the end of the week.
The long term outlook is still up for debate. Some of the extended models show a persistent dome of warmer than average weather over the central United States days 10 to 20, while others keep us closer to normal with an even better shot of cooler air arriving by day 14.
[Denver Post/John Epperson] A landscaper tends a young at the Superior Marketplace near U.S. 36 and Marshall Road.
Maybe it’s the grand I’ve spent on dead and broken trees over the past year, but here’s another lecture about weather and our wooded, expensive friends. We’ve weathered a year of drought. Last winter’s snowpack of weak, and we’re off to a grim start so far this season. As of last week, all of Colorado was in some stage of drought, and much of the state is weathering “extreme” or “exceptional” conditions, says the U.S. Drought Monitor.
So cut your the quiet giants of your yard some slack, or they could get even with a branch through the roof on a windy day.
The Colorado State Forest Service at Colorado State University said Monday to give your dormant trees some love, especially the younger ones, this winter.
“It’s very important to prepare your trees for winter’s cold, arid conditions, and also to continue watering them during drier periods over the next several months,” Keith Wood, community forestry program manager for the Colorado State Forest Service, said in a press release.
In the city, that means breaking out the buckets and or a hose every two to three weeks if there hasn’t been a good covering of show. Wood advised watering on days when the temperature gets to at least 40 degrees.
Weather worriers couldn’t have teed it up more perfectly for Colorado Winter Weather Awareness Week. The annual week of information and preparedness began Sunday with perfect fall weather, near the peak of the leaf-change across much of the state. By the end of the week, some Coloradoans could be slipping and sliding in sub-freezing temperatures.
The Denver metro area enjoyed high temperatures in the low 70s Monday, and Tuesday could be even warmer. City temperatures will fall back to average for the date, 62 degrees, on Wednesday before giving way to cold and possibly snowy temperatures by the weekend, with better chances for snow above 10,000 feet. The Pacific storm system headed our way dropped 2 feet of snow on the northern California mountains Monday.
Gov. John Hickenlooper’s signed a proclamation last month declaring the week-long observance and noted Colorado leads the nation in avalanche deaths. The governor said slides had “claimed the lives of hundreds of individuals in the past several decades” — 241 since 1950, to be exact, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center in Boulder. Last year high country experts said the avalanche risk was the highest in 30 years.
[Dustin Schaefer\Loveland Ski Area ] A low pressure system and cold front brought a welcome round of snow to the Colorado high country this week, evidenced by this photo at Loveland Ski area Tuesday.
Let’s be real. Snow can fall in Colorado all year-long, if you count the highest peaks. Nonetheless, forgive me for being giddy about reports of the white stuff from equally ebullient ski resorts Tuesday.
Even with my tomatoes finally getting fat and rosy, I’m ready for this long, hot season to turn to dry leaves, corduroy pants and a foot of two of snow before Halloween.
I was in Minnesota last week, and my soul is still full. After 10 autumns in Colorado — where the leave change is green to gold to gone in what seems like 10 minutes — I’d lost sight of what a brilliant Calico quilt fall can bring. Lake Superior’s splashy colors reminded me of growing up in the rugged South, where stunning fall beauty is around every turn in the road. The fall’s reds, yellows, corn-stalk browns and the disappearing greens -were so delicate and perfect it seemed impossible to deny the hand of God. The upper Midwest in September made me question again my worthiness to look at any one color on the palette too long, like I was using up someone else’s share.
Autumn’s wardrobe change is simple science, really. Shorter days and cooler weather shuts down the photosynthesis that keeps leaves green and mask the yellow and orange carotenoids that are always there. The stored sugar in maples and oaks produced reds and browns, and tall pines drop needles and cones just trying to fit in. In the Colorado mountains, the aspen are turning a shade of Missy Franklin gold.
Killer snow ends the leaves’ big show around here. Last year a big storm pummeled us on Oct. 26, that’s one month from Wednesday. The average date for the first freeze in the city is Oct. 7 — aka, a week from Saturday. The average date for the first snow is Oct. 18. I noticed the first yellow leaves collecting on the fairway-green grass of my back lawn this morning.
Weather is such a toy box for those of us who love the magic of science, the intensity of change and unexpected gifts from Heaven. With a summer of wilting heat, crop-killing drought. deadly wildfires and a senseless mass murder behind us, I’ll gladly be the first to stick out my tongue, catch a flake or two and say a thank you.
Gratitude for what we’re given has a way of getting bigger as it rolls downhill, at least I hope.
If you’re one of those analytic people who believe the future will be pretty much like the past, then breathe a sigh of relief if you’ve had enough of 2012’s infernal heat.
The past 30 years of weather averages tells us that high temperatures peaked on Aug. 1, when the normal daily high since 1982 is 90 degrees. The mercury curves slowly downward in August to a daily high of 84 degrees in Denver by Labor Day. And, of course, September is, as my favorite Alabamian would say, like a box of chocolates (you never know what you’re going to get). After all, in 1961 snow fell on Denver on Sept. 3, and the city shivered through its first freeze on Sept. 18 in 2006 and on Sept. 14 in 2003.
So I’m saying just sweat it out a few more days.
Cross your fingers, Front Range, there’s a chance of some rain the next couple days, but mostly it looks like spotty afternoon downpours. We’re down to this, begging.
Denver has a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning, when the chances of rain climb to 40 percent. Temperatures should cool off to around 90 through the end of the week in the Denver metro region.
The rain, if it falls, could not be more welcome. All of Colorado is in a drought, and some places much more so than others. The U.S. Drought Monitor finds that 70.46 percent of the state is in “extreme” to “exceptional” drought. At this time last year, just 16.88 percent of the state was in that category, according to federal climate analysts.