Typically November is a quiet weather month with plenty of nice, fall days but it can also turn wet with plenty of snow and moisture.  Just like Forest Gump’s proverbial box of chocolates, you never quite know what you are going to get.

Looking into the weather history books, we see that November is actually Denver’s second snowiest month, second only to March (April is third).  Historically we average 10.7 inches of snow during the month.

One little known fact…  November is the area’s least sunny month, tying with May with only 64 percent sunshine.  September is the sunniest month with sunshine 74 percent of the time.

Get all the details on Denver’s November weather including a look back through history, a recap of last year and the statistics in our November weather preview.

November 2010 was most notable not for what weather condition occurred but rather for what it lacked – snow.  Historically November is Denver’s second snowiest month but 2010 saw us receive very little of the white stuff as we start out the season far behind where we average.

At the official Denver weather monitoring station at Denver International Airport a mere 1.5 inches of the white stuff was recorded.  That is 9.2 inches below the historical November average of 10.7 inches.  Despite that, the month fell short of the top 10 least snowiest Novembers as number 10 on that list is 1971 with 1.4 inches.  Given that no snow was recorded in September or October, the 2010 snow season is off to a dismal start at more than 15 inches below normal.

In terms of precipitation, only 0.5 inch was collected in the rain bucket – barely more than half of the normal of 0.98 inch.  While dry, it wasn’t enough to put the month into top 10 driest November status.  Three years in Denver history have recorded only a trace of precipitation and the number 10 slot is held by 1989 when only 0.15 inch of precipitation was recorded.  No precipitation or snowfall records were set or tied during the month.

Here in Thornton we fared drier than the official Denver tallies on all fronts.  We recorded only 1.14 inches of snow and 0.33 inch of precipitation.

Temperature-wise Denver ended the month warmer than normal with an average temperature of 38.3 degrees.  This was 0.8 degrees above the normal of 37.5 degrees.  Temperatures ranged from a high of 77 degrees on the 6th down to a low of 4 degrees on the 25th.  There were 24 days with low temperatures below the freezing mark which is normal.  On only one day, the 29th, did we fail to hit a high temperature of at least freezing as the thermometer only climbed to 31 degrees that day.  No temperature records were set or tied during the month.

Overall Thornton’s average temperature for the month was cooler than Denver’s.  The average temperature was 36.8 degrees with the warmest day hitting 78.7 degrees and the lowest temperature being 9.0 degrees.

Wind is of course a fact of life on the plains and November 2010 did set a new peak wind gust for the month of 55 mph on the 16th.  This easily broke the old record of 49 mph set in 1990.

Click here to view the 2010 Thornton Climate Summary.

CLIMATE REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BOULDER, CO
745 AM MST FRI DEC 3 2010

................................... 

...THE DENVER CO CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER 2010... 

CLIMATE NORMAL PERIOD 1971 TO 2000
CLIMATE RECORD PERIOD 1872 TO 2010

WEATHER         OBSERVED          NORMAL  DEPART  LAST YEAR`S
                 VALUE   DATE(S)  VALUE   FROM    VALUE  DATE(S)
                                          NORMAL
................................................................
TEMPERATURE (F)
RECORD
 HIGH              80   11/08/2006
 LOW              -18   11/29/1877
HIGHEST            77   11/06        79      -2       77  11/05
LOWEST              4   11/25       -18      22       16  11/16
AVG. MAXIMUM     52.6              51.5     1.1     56.4
AVG. MINIMUM     24.0              23.5     0.5     28.8
MEAN             38.3              37.5     0.8     42.6
DAYS MAX >= 90      0               0.0     0.0        0
DAYS MAX = .01         6               5.6     0.4        3
DAYS >= .10         2                MM      MM        3
DAYS >= .50         0                MM      MM        0
DAYS >= 1.00        0                MM      MM        0
GREATEST
 24 HR. TOTAL    0.15 11/16 TO 11/16         0.33 11/14 TO 11/15

SNOWFALL (INCHES)
RECORDS
 TOTAL           42.6  1946
TOTALS            1.5               10.7

DEGREE_DAYS
HEATING TOTAL     793               826     -33      664
 SINCE 7/1       1128              1408    -280     1479
COOLING TOTAL       0                 0       0        0
 SINCE 1/1        870               696     174      533

FREEZE DATES
RECORD
 EARLIEST     09/08/1962
 LATEST       06/08/2007
EARLIEST                        10/07
LATEST                          05/05
................................................................. 

WIND (MPH)
AVERAGE WIND SPEED              9.7
RESULTANT WIND SPEED/DIRECTION   2/228
HIGHEST WIND SPEED/DIRECTION    45/310    DATE  11/16
HIGHEST GUST SPEED/DIRECTION    55/320    DATE  11/16

SKY COVER
POSSIBLE SUNSHINE (PERCENT)   MM

NUMBER OF DAYS FAIR            9
NUMBER OF DAYS PC             17
NUMBER OF DAYS CLOUDY          4

AVERAGE RH (PERCENT)     51

WEATHER CONDITIONS. NUMBER OF DAYS WITH
THUNDERSTORM              0     MIXED PRECIP               0
HEAVY RAIN                0     RAIN                       1
LIGHT RAIN                2     FREEZING RAIN              0
LT FREEZING RAIN          0     HAIL                       0
HEAVY SNOW                1     SNOW                       4
LIGHT SNOW                9     SLEET                      0
FOG                      13     FOG W/VIS