Colorado Climate Center

02/02/2024

New post from Peter Goble about his recent paper on why forecasting river flows and water supply in Colorado is tough. It's largely because we don't know enough about what's going to happen with spring and summer weather!

The Colorado River is the lifeblood of the desert southwestern United States. Its water is...

01/25/2024

If you haven't heard, we're blogging now. Ever wonder about some random Colorado climate fact you heard? Interested in learning more about the significance of recent weather events? Are you a climate geek like us?? If so, have we got the blog for you. The Colorado Climate Center team will be blogging to bring you all the latest facts and trivia that you didn't know you needed to know!

climate context CoAgMET temperature The mid-January 2024 cold blast in context Russ Schumacher January 25, 2024 In mid-January 2024, it got brutally cold across Colorado. The lowest temperatures were on the morning of January 16th, and the map of low temperatures from CoAgMET shows a lot…

12/12/2023

Here's our November monthly climate summary for Colorado. It was the 5th straight month of warmer-than-average temperature, and tied for the 8th warmest fall statewide. The streak of drier-than-average falls that started in 2016 also continued. Read on for more details!

11/01/2023

We're now a month in to the 2024 water year, but maybe you're interested in looking back on WY 2023. If so, we've got you covered with our long summary of Colorado weather and climate. Browse through snow, rain, hail, and more:https://climate.colostate.edu/reports/wy2023_climate_summary_long.pdf

10/11/2023

September was warm across Colorado: the 3rd straight month of above-average temperatures. Rains mostly missed southern and western CO, and drought expanded there. Read more in our monthly summary, and stay tuned for a recap of water year 2023 soon!

09/26/2023

Members of a State Climate Extremes Committee said “Hail yes!” to a new statewide hail diameter record set near Kirk, Colorado on August 8, 2023. Besides coming in at an impressive 5.25 inches in diameter, the stone raised some hail measurement conundrums too. Read more in the full report:https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/extremes/scec/reports/20230926-Colorado-Hailstone.pdf

U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) US National Weather Service Goodland Kansas Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety - IBHS Colorado Climate Center

09/08/2023

Peter Goble's work on Colorado's climate and wine grapes was highlighted in CSU's Source Magazine. And yep, the rest of us are jealous that our research isn't centered around wine!

Climate conditions that enable grapes to thrive in Palisade exist in other parts of Western Colorado, which could lead to expansion of the state’s wine industry, according to a new study by CSU atmospheric and agricultural scientists.

08/02/2023

Some extremely sharp contrasts in rainfall across Colorado in July: parts of southeast CO had their wettest July on record, and much of southern and southwestern CO had their driest July. Preliminary data shown here; stay tuned for our full July monthly summary next week!

07/12/2023

Our monthly climate summary for the wet, wild June of 2023 is out!

It was the 6th wettest June statewide, and the wettest June on record for Elbert, Lincoln, El Paso, Douglas, and Morgan Counties. It was also an extremely active month for tornadoes and severe hailstorms. The 21st saw the most tornadoes on a single day in state records, and June had possibly the most severe hail reports in a single month.

Read the whole summary here, and subscribe to get them in your inbox each month:

07/06/2023

The first time since July 16, 2019 that the US Drought Monitor map has been completely clear across Colorado! 🎉

07/05/2023

We know June was a wet month across eastern Colorado. A couple CoCoRaHS observers in El Paso County had over 10" of rain. Where did June stack up historically? Based on preliminary PRISM data, the wettest June on record over a broad area (dark green shading on 2nd map).

What if we compare it to *all* months in the record (not just June)? That's the third map, and shows that there are pockets of eastern Colorado that had their wettest month on record, period, according to this dataset.

You might also remember that May was very wet in many of the same areas. If we compare May-June 2023 to all other 2-month periods (4th map), again we see that much of eastern Colorado had its wettest 2-month period on record.

These maps are all from preliminary data from the PRISM climate group; we'll update them with official NOAA numbers when they're released next week. If you want to get those updates in your inbox, subscribe to our monthly state climate summaries! https://climate.colostate.edu/subscribe.html