From the National Weather Service: June 2009 has moved into the second wettest June since Denver weather records began in 1872. So far for June 2009, through June 26th, the Denver International Airport (DIA) has measured 4.86 inches of liquid (and there are still 4 more days left in June). The 4.86 inches of water is 3.52 inches above normal through the 26th. Last year, June 2008 had only measured 0.73 inch again through the same June time frame.
The wettest June on record for Denver was in June 1882 when 4.96 inches of moisture was collected in the rain bucket.
For the 2009 year so far, 10.38 inches of water has been measured at DIA which is a very impressive 2.51 inches above the normal through June 26th. Last year in June, only 3.04 inches had been recorded through the same time frame.
Note: The average Denver annual precipitation is 15.81 inches.
Denver is historically Thornton's true severe weather month.
June is historically Denver’s severe weather month and severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and hail are notorious visitors to Denver and across eastern Colorado during the month. In fact, over 40 percent of the tornadoes that occur in Colorado are observed in June and these are typically the most destructive of the year. Severe thunderstorms have also caused major property damage across the Front Range during the month.
In just the last 25 years or so, there have been some particularly notable storms in June. Tornadoes have struck the metro area including one that longtime Thornton residents will recall on June 3, 1981. 53 residents were injured, 25 homes were destroyed and 239 other structures were damaged. Others tornadoes in the metro area include southeast Denver and Aurora on June 8, 1986 and east Denver on June 13, 1984. Severe thunderstorms occurring on June 13, 1984 dumped large hail making it one of the worst and the second costliest storm in Denver history. More recently, on June 20, 2001, a major hail storm moved across Denver International Airport dropping hailstones as big as two inches in diameter. Damage was extensive on and near the airport.
Denver set a temperature record for today, May 19.
It’s official. At 1:24pm today the temperature at Denver International Airport reached 90 degrees setting a new record high temperature for May 19. This breaks the previous record high for this date of 89 degrees set in 2006.
Wtih some cloud cover moving in and a chance for thunderstorms in the forecast, it appears that is as high as the mercury will climb today.
But is it truly a record?
One does have to wonder though, is it truly fair to call this a record? When the National Weather Service moved Denver’s official monitoring station from Stapleton to Denver International Airport, some say the city’s climate records were forever altered. For more information and analysis of the controversy, check out this story: Do Denver weather and climate records have an asterisk attached?
Do April showers bring May flowers? Find out in our April 2009 weather preview!
April marks a transition between winter and summer for most of the country but for Denver it is especially true as we can see a stunning variety of weather. The proverbial April showers are certainly a possibility for Denver. Snow? Tornadoes? Thunderstorms? You bet – all can happen! For good measure throw in a chance for hail and even dust storms and April gives every type of weather condition you could like – or hate.
The good news is that sunshine and warmer temperatures are usually in abundance as the normal highs during the month move up from 57 degrees on the first to 65 degrees on the 30th. It is not unusual to have a number of days well into the 70’s and the low 80’s. We also see the normal lows move above freezing from 30 degrees at the start of the month to 39 degrees by the end. Temperature extremes can hit both ends of the spectrum with a record low of 2 degrees below zero on April 2, 1975 and a record high of 90 degrees on April 30, 1992.
We have oftentimes heard headache sufferers, particularly those that get migraines, attribute their pain to the weather. These had sometimes been dismissed as an old wives tale but a new study shows that there is a great deal of truth to this.
The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston has recently completed the first large-scale study showing how environmental conditions like weather and air pollution can influence headache pain. Over 7,000 patients were studied in order to see if there is a link.
Kenneth Mukamal, MD, MPH, one of the authors of the study and a physician at BIDMC explains that, “Air temperature, humidity and barometric pressure are among the most frequent reasons that people give for their headache pain. But none of these reasons have been consistently verified. We wanted to find out if we could verify this ‘clinical folklore’.”
Mukamal and his coauthors compared levels of pollutants and meterological variables at the time of the patient’s hospital visit with corresponding levels on preceding days and subsequent weeks. Using meteorlogical and pollutant monitors they compared measurements of factors such as air temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, and dioxides from the three days prior to a patients’ visit to see if there was a correlation between these items and the patients’ headaches.
The results of the study seem to prove that this old wives tale is true. Of the factors considered, higher air temperature in the 24 hours just prior to a patient’s visit to the hospital was most associated with the headache symptoms. There was a 7.5 percent higher risk of severe headaches for each increase of nine degrees in temperature. Although not as profound, lower barometric pressure in the 48 to 72 hour period before a hospital visit also was seen to trigger headaches.
Dr. Mukamal says, “Certainly our results are consistent with the idea that severe headaches can be triggered by external factors. These findings help tell us that the environment around us does affect our health and, in terms of headaches, may be impacting many, many people on a daily basis.”
The next time you have a headache, if it was a good bit warmer the day before or the barometric pressure was lower a couple days before, you may have found the cause of your headache!
The old Stapleton International Airport site and Denver International Airport are separated by 12 miles. Is it accurate to compare weather between the two locations?
These announcements are common and we all take notice when we hear them and they make for great water cooler chat topics but are these claims accurate?
In 1995 Denver finally opened its new airport, Denver International Airport, out on the plains east of the city. This new facility, 12 miles as the crow flies northeast of the old Stapleton International Airport, moved the airport from an urban environment to a rural one and more than 19 miles from the center of Denver. Following that move, the National Weather Service (NWS) began taking some of its official measurements at the glistening new airport. In doing so, some say Denver’s climate records have forever been altered and as such any weather record should have an asterisk attached to it.
Denver and Thornton's March 2009 climatological preview
March in Denver typically means frequent and rapid weather changes. The days grow longer and we start enjoying more sunshine and sometimes summer-like weather. However, on occasion arctic air masses can still force their way south into Colorado dropping temperatures quickly and markedly.
These changes are due to Marches “in between” status – elements during the month have much in common with winter and spring. In addition to arctic fronts, Pacific storms frequently move across Colorado from the west and warm moist air streams up from the Gulf of Mexico northeastward into the state. When these cold fronts collide with the warmer air masses the result can be some crazy weather.
A pretty interesting headline isn’t that? I admit that is probably a bit more sensationalistic than what is really called for. However, that would seem to be one of the conclusions from the author and analyst of a recent survey.
3,146 earth scientists from various areas of expertise were surveyed for their opinions and in many ways, the data was not surprising. Two questions were key to the study:
Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels?
Has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?
Extremely high clouds, known as deep convective clouds, are typically associated with severe storms and rainfall. In this AIRS image of Hurricane Katrina, taken August 28, 2005, the day before Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, the eye of the storm was surrounded by a "super cluster" of 528 deep convective clouds (depicted in dark blue). The temperatures of the tops of such clouds are colder than 210 degrees Kelvin (-82 degrees Fahrenheit). Image credit: NASA/JPL
Scientists are NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA recently released the results of a study that determined that global warming is causing an increase in high clouds and a corresponding increase in severe storms and rainfall. This is not unlike previous warnings issued by some scientists, in particular those warnings of an increase in hurricane intensity and frequency in the Atlantic. Thus far those previous warnings have not bore out. Will this one?
PASADENA, Calif. — The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth’s tropics — the type associated with severe storms and rainfall — is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
In a presentation today to the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann outlined the results of a study based on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua spacecraft. The AIRS data were used to observe certain types of tropical clouds linked with severe storms, torrential rain and hail. The instrument typically detects about 6,000 of these clouds each day. Aumann and his team found a strong correlation between the frequency of these clouds and seasonal variations in the average sea surface temperature of the tropical oceans.
For every degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average ocean surface temperature, the team observed a 45-percent increase in the frequency of the very high clouds. At the present rate of global warming of 0.13 degrees Celsius (0.23 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, the team inferred the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by six percent per decade.
Climate modelers have long speculated that the frequency and intensity of severe storms may or may not increase with global warming. Aumann said results of the study will help improve their models.
“Clouds and rain have been the weakest link in climate prediction,” said Aumann. “The interaction between the daytime warming of the sea surface under clear-sky conditions and increases in the formation of low clouds, high clouds and, ultimately, rain is very complicated. The high clouds in our observations—typically at altitudes of 20 kilometers (12 miles) and higher—present the greatest difficulties for current climate models, which aren’t able to resolve cloud structures smaller than about 250 kilometers (155 miles) in size.”
Aumann said the results of his study, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, are consistent with another NASA-funded study by Frank Wentz and colleagues in 2005. That study found an increase in the global rain rate of 1.5 percent per decade over 18 years, a value that is about five times higher than the value estimated by climate models that were used in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
JPL manages the AIRS project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information on AIRS, visit http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/ .
As we continue on what has been a relatively dry season thus far, cold and dry are the key words to remember when it comes to January. The month is the coldest of the year and the second driest as well. Just how cold can January get? The record low temperature for each day of the month is at least 10 degrees below zero.
