Late afternoon thunderstorms and showers began falling yesterday and continued through midnight. Areas to the east and north, including Denver International Airport, saw more precipitation than other locations and DIA set a daily rainfall record as a result.
Denver’s official rainfall total for July 29 came in at a healthy 1.80 inches. The previous 24 hour precipitation record for the date was 1.44 inches back in 1989. Precipitation records in Denver began in 1872.
Here in Thornton we recorded 0.82 inches for the date. While well short of Denver’s number, that is still a great deal of rain.
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Denver easily broke the 24 hour precipitation record for July 13th.
It is readily apparent that July has thus far been a wet month given that we have seen eight straight days of thunderstorms. Yesterday the storms set a record for precipitation and Denver is on pace to make the month one of the wettest Julys on record.
Out at Denver International Airport yesterday, 1.03” of precipitation was recorded. This set the record for the date easily besting the old record of 0.45” set in 1993.
Here in Thornton we recorded 0.45” yesterday so a good bit less than out at the airport but still a decent shot of precipitation.
This brings Denver’s official total to 3.19” for the month so far. Average for the entire month of July is 2.16” so we are far ahead of that.
Number 10 on the ‘top 10 wettest Julys’ occurred in 1985 with 3.71”. Given the fact that the forecast continues to contain daily thunderstorms for the foreseeable future, there is a good chance we will exceed that before the month is over.
Thornton is ahead of the game in comparison to DIA as we have recorded 4.52” so far this month.
Denver easily broke the 24 hour precipitation record for June 20th.
It was a wet day in Denver yesterday and the statistics bear that one out. The official Denver weather monitoring station at Denver International Airport recorded 1.05 inches of precipitation on June 20th. This easily broke the previous record for the date of 0.50 inch set in 1938.
Here in Thornton we recorded a bit less but still a considerable amount – 0.87 inch.
The record setting rain in Denver does once again highlight the problems with having Denver’s monitoring station at DIA used for comparison to historical records. The 12 mile move of the station in 1995 from its previous location has skewed Denver’s climate records.
With the event yesterday we see that the station in Denver City Park recorded no rain at all. Had the National Weather Service logically choose to use this location, or the previous one at Stapleton, as the official source for Denver weather, no record would have been set.
Late afternoon thunderstorms and showers began falling yesterday and continued through midnight. Areas to the east and north, including Denver International Airport, saw more precipitation than other locations and DIA set a daily rainfall record as a result.