The month of June was a rather eventful one with wetter than normal conditions starting things out and temperatures coming in quite a ways above normal. Further, the month lived up to its reputation as Colorado’s severe weather month with numerous notable thunderstorms and a good bit of tornado activity.
The month started out warm and dry but on the 3rd a cold front moved in cooling things down and bringing healthy shots of rain. On the 4th and 5th Thornton saw more than a half inch of rain on each day.
To our north, the 4th brought extreme weather in the form of an EF-3 tornado near Berthoud and multiple, smaller tornadoes in the Simla area to the southwest.
We then dried out a bit and warmed up but on the 9th another cold front arrived. Like the previous system, cooler temperatures and a decent shot of rain followed.
In the first 18 days of the month, Thornton saw 14 days with measurable precipitation. That however chanced for the latter third of the month as we dried out and warmed up significantly. There were still days with thunderstorms but the bulk of them seemed to just miss Thornton for the most part.
Such was the case of the 24th when extreme weather hit to our south. While we saw just a bit of rain, other areas near central Denver recorded far more and an EF-1 tornado struck from northeast Denver to northwest Aurora.
Overall Thornton’s monthly average temperature for June 2015 came in at 69.0 degrees. This was a good ways above the long term June average for Denver of 67.4 degrees. Out at the airport, the Mile High City’s official average reading was 69.5 degrees.
Temperatures in Thornton ranged from a high of 94.3 degrees on the 21st down to a low of 50.5 degrees on the morning of the 6th. Denver’s highest reading of 94 degrees came on the 30th and its lowest of 51 degrees on the 3rd.
In terms of precipitation, both Thornton and Denver recorded identical amounts in their rain buckets. The 2.53 inches of precip bested Denver’s June average of 1.98 inches by a good bit. In all, Thornton saw 16 days of measurable precipitation while Denver recorded 13.
Click here to view Thornton’s June 2015 climate report.
CLIMATE REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BOULDER, CO 806 PM MDT SAT JUL 4 2015 ................................... ...THE DENVER CO CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE 2015... CLIMATE NORMAL PERIOD 1981 TO 2010 CLIMATE RECORD PERIOD 1872 TO 2015 WEATHER OBSERVED NORMAL DEPART LAST YEAR`S VALUE DATE(S) VALUE FROM VALUE DATE(S) NORMAL ................................................................ TEMPERATURE (F) RECORD HIGH 105 06/26/2012 06/25/2012 54/01/2206 LOW 30 06/02/1951 HIGHEST 94 06/30 94 06/26 LOWEST 51 06/03 42 06/15 AVG. MAXIMUM 82.9 82.4 0.5 83.4 AVG. MINIMUM 56.1 52.3 3.8 51.2 MEAN 69.5 67.4 2.1 67.3 DAYS MAX >= 90 6 7.9 -1.9 6 DAYS MAX <= 32 0 0.0 0.0 0 DAYS MIN <= 32 0 0.0 0.0 0 DAYS MIN <= 0 0 0.0 0.0 0 PRECIPITATION (INCHES) RECORD MAXIMUM 4.96 1882 MINIMUM T 1890 TOTALS 2.53 1.98 0.55 1.82 DAILY AVG. 0.08 0.07 0.01 0.06 DAYS >= .01 13 8.4 4.6 9 DAYS >= .10 5 4.6 0.4 5 DAYS >= .50 2 1.4 0.6 1 DAYS >= 1.00 0 0.3 -0.3 0 GREATEST 24 HR. TOTAL 0.99 06/05 TO 06/05 06/27 TO 06/27 SNOWFALL (INCHES) RECORDS TOTAL 0.0 TOTALS 0.0 0.0 DEGREE_DAYS HEATING TOTAL 11 62 -51 30 SINCE 7/1 5583 6058 -475 6004 COOLING TOTAL 154 133 21 106 SINCE 1/1 158 155 3 127 FREEZE DATES RECORD EARLIEST 09/08/1962 LATEST 06/08/2007 EARLIEST 10/07 LATEST 05/05 ........................................................ WIND (MPH) AVERAGE WIND SPEED 9.0 RESULTANT WIND SPEED/DIRECTION 2/167 HIGHEST WIND SPEED/DIRECTION 36/160 DATE 06/24 HIGHEST GUST SPEED/DIRECTION 47/160 DATE 06/24 SKY COVER POSSIBLE SUNSHINE (PERCENT) MM AVERAGE SKY COVER 0.50 NUMBER OF DAYS FAIR 6 NUMBER OF DAYS PC 22 NUMBER OF DAYS CLOUDY 2 AVERAGE RH (PERCENT) 61 WEATHER CONDITIONS. NUMBER OF DAYS WITH THUNDERSTORM 16 MIXED PRECIP 0 HEAVY RAIN 4 RAIN 5 LIGHT RAIN 16 FREEZING RAIN 0 LT FREEZING RAIN 0 HAIL 3 HEAVY SNOW 0 SNOW 0 LIGHT SNOW 0 SLEET 1 FOG 6 FOG W/VIS <= 1/4 MILE 1 HAZE 3 - INDICATES NEGATIVE NUMBERS. R INDICATES RECORD WAS SET OR TIED. MM INDICATES DATA IS MISSING. T INDICATES TRACE AMOUNT.