Updated 12/15/08 @ 3:30am:
It’s officially cold as heck now! The cold front has caused the mercury to plummet across the Front Range and we have officially set two new low temperature records.
At 5:52pm on Sunday, December 14th, the temperature at Denver International Airport dropped to -15 degrees. That broke the old record of -14 degrees for this date set way back in 1901. The mercury continued to drop and bottomed out at -18 degrees at 6:35pm.
The morning of the 15th has started with a new record low temperature as well. At 12:00am the temperature was -13 degrees, breaking the old record for the date of -6 set in 1951. The temperature is still dropping so that record will undoubtedly get even colder.
It is important to note that prior to DIA opening, temperatures were measured at the old Stapleton site and prior to 1950 they were measured downtown. That makes a 15 mile distance between where temperatures are measured now and where they were prior to March 1995. Those 15 miles can accont for large differences in temperature so the record setting temperatures needs to be balanced with that knowledge as in some ways you are comparing apples and oranges. Click here for a bit of history on the Denver Forecast Office.
Original posting:
We can officially say it is cold now. The National Weather Service has reported that at 5:52pm the temperature at Denver International Airport dropped to -15 degrees. That breaks the old record of -14 degrees for this date set way back in 1901.
Thankfully here in Thornton we haven’t gotten that cold. At 7:00pm Sunday night it is currently -6.2 degrees. We will get down to -11 tonight and then only climb to 18 Monday. Bundle up!
It is important to note that prior to DIA opening, temperatures were measured at the old Stapleton site (and before that downtown). That makes a 15 mile distance between where temperatures are measured now and where they were prior to 1994. Those 15 miles can accont for large differences in temperature so you have to take these new records with a grain of salt.