CDOT closed Loveland Pass west of Denver for a couple hours to plow.
It seems a bit cool all over the USA for a Sunday afternoon in August.
US HOURLY TEMPERATURES AT 19:39 GMT/UTC Sunday
Click for larger image
In Denver, particularly so. Not one, but two new low maximum temp records have been set in Denver on two consecutive days. See the NWS record reports:
SXUS75 KBOU 170200 RRB
RERBOU
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
800 PM MDT SAT AUG 16 2008
…RECORD LOW MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE SET IN DENVER FOR AUGUST 16TH…
THE HIGH TEMPERATURE AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TODAY WAS 58
DEGREES.
THIS 58 DEGREE READING WILL REPLACE THE PREVIOUS LOW MAXIMUM
TEMPERATURE RECORD FOR AUGUST 16TH WHICH WAS 63 DEGREES SET 118
YEARS AGO IN 1890.
KTF
SXUS75 KBOU 160100 RRB
RERBOU
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
700 PM MDT FRI AUG 15 2008
…RECORD LOW MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE SET IN DENVER FOR AUGUST 15TH…
THE HIGH TEMPERATURE AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TODAY WAS 59
DEGREES.
THIS WILL REPLACE THE OLD LOW MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE RECORD FOR AUGUST
15TH WHICH WAS 68 DEGREES SET 128 YEARS AGO 1880.
KTF
Of course just a few days ago, they were talking about consecutive 90 degree days, and the possibility of a even longer new record, but it looks like the cold wet snap prevented that from happening:
SXUS75 KBOU 052159
RERBOU
COZ030>051-052300-
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
336 PM MDT TUE AUG 05 2008
AT 243 THIS AFTERNOON THE TEMPERATURE AT DENVER INTERNATIONAL
AIRPORT REACHED 91 DEGREES. THIS EXTENDS OUR CONSECUTIVE 90 DEGREE
DAY STREAK TO 24. SO FAR IN 2008 41 NINETY DEGREE DAYS HAVE BEEN
TALLIED. 2008 IS JUST 9 DAYS AWAY FROM THE 10TH TOP SEASONAL TOTAL
OF FIFTY 90 DEGREE DAYS SET IN BOTH 1960 AND 1964.
I guess it’s a case of:
“Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.” – Robert A. Heinlein
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Fire uup them barbecues next to the temperature station
There’s a typo in the temperature map. They misspelled ‘cool’, its “c-o-o-l” not “m-i-l-d”. Cold, cool, warm, hot.
Why am I receiving the following pop-up on your RSS feed when I connect to the feed:
The server http://www.drao-ofr.hia-iha.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca at Current Solar Flux requires a username and password.
Warning: This server is requesting that your username and password be sent in an insecure manner (basic authentication without a secure connection).
Any good way to stop it??
REPLY: Hmm must be an embedded link in a story, perhaps they’ve started to password protect the data? I don’t know how to stop it short of finding the story and removing that link.
Al Gore is a coming. As soon as Obama announces him as his VP choice, it will start snowing in Denver.
It would be funny to have the AGW-touting Democratic Party roll into Denver for their convention, only to be greeted by unseasonably COLD temperatures.
For two days running I’ve been directly under the only rain throughout the eight counties of Western NY. Today it’s been sunny all day for a change.
This morning’s weather forecast acknowledged that we’ve had a cool summer so far, with that long lasting upper level low in northeast Canada messing up everyone’s summer for over a month, from the upper midwest and the Great Lakes basin to Canada. The word is, the low’s finally moving out and the forecast is for summer-like temperatures to return by mid-week. Two weeks before labor day and the kids returning to school. Such excellent timing.
So now that Denver’s cooled a bit, maybe some of the heat they’ve lost will find its way east. Finally.
Anthony,
I’m confused by your last statement about the possibility of record warmth at Denver. The 90° streak was not only met, but smashed. (24 days vs the prior record of 18)
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
1115 AM MDT MON AUG 04 2008
…DENVER`S CONSECUTIVE 90 DEGREE STREAK IS NOW 23 DAYS…
AT 1049 AM…THE TEMPERATURE AT THE DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
REACHED 90 DEGREES.
THIS IS THE 23RD CONSECUTIVE DAY THAT THE TEMPERATURE HAS REACHED OR EXCEEDED THE 90 DEGREE MARK. THE PREVIOUS 90 DEGREE RECORD STREAK PRIOR TO THIS YEAR WAS 18 DAYS SET WAY BACK IN 1878 AND IN 1901.
A COLD FRONT EXPECTED TO MOVE ACROSS NORTHEASTERN COLORADO OVERNIGHT WILL BRING COOLER TEMPERATURES ON TUESDAY…THUS BRINGING AN END TO THE 90 DEGREE STREAK.
REPLY: I worded that badly. It is fixed now by adding the verbage that should have been there in the first place. Thanks for pointing it out.
Okay, I know it’s anecdotal and just weather, but that recent Denver record didn’t just set, but blew away the previous record by 9 degrees! Ironically, the previous record was set in the year most of the referenced data sets began for the IPCC and Hansen, et al.
BTW: it’s in the mid 70s here in Albequerque, NM, well below seasonal average. It was upper 80s when I was here last year at this time. Southeast Alaska has been running 3-5 degrees cool all summer.
I live in Colorado Springs. We’ve been enjoying the rain and cold weather. My friend ran the Pikes Peak Ascent, though, yesterday, and those runners had to deal with hail, hypothermia, etc. in August. But that’s what we expect now and then in Colorado. Our Pikes Peak Hill Climb has encountered blizzards on the Fourth of July before.
Denver temperature data is nearly meaningless. It suffers massive UHI and the airport recently moved 20 miles out to DIA. Normal July temperature in Denver is 88 – who even notices if it gets up to 90? Fort Collins and Boulder had no 100 degree temperatures this summer, and the summer was much cooler and shorter than the past two.
Neither Fort Collins nor Boulder had more than four consecutive 90 degree days this summer.
http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu/~autowx/fclwx_plotsearch_display.php
http://www.eol.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/weather.cgi?fields=tdry&fields=rh&fields=cpres0&fields=wspd&fields=wdir&fields=raina&site=fl&units=english&period=monthly
I’ve seen winter mornings when downtown Denver was 20 degrees warmer than surrounding rural areas at the same elevation.
The good news about the cold rain this weekend was that it motivated me to go buy some waterproof shoes for biking to work. Friday, my shoes were saturated the entire day.
Loveland Pass (US-6) is bypassed by the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70. It’s the “shortcut” to A-Basin from Denver.
My daughter just returned from San Fran a couple of minutes ago and told me it was 58 degrees when the left a few hours ago. But then again, San Fran can always be cool this time of year.
Jack Koenig
Reply: We are having fog days. They intersperse with non-fog days during the summer. That means when it’s 58 here, it could be 90 degrees just 10 miles away~charles the moderator in sf.
Loveland Pass (US-6) is bypassed by the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70. It’s the “shortcut” to A-Basin from Denver.
That’s good to know. I was worried that closing the pass might hurt the lift ticket business out at Arapahoe Basin.
Temperature records out of Denver are unadulterated bulls**t! The new airport has only been in existence since the mid 90’s. Prior to then, the readings were from Stapleton Field and before that downtown Denver. The site has moved nearly 25 miles to the ENE in the past 75 years. In fact , the current location is a mere 10 miles from Bennett which has the distinction of holding the all time Colorado high temp of 118F. A couple of years ago the “scientists” at Boulder were hyping the record summer highs including tying the 120+ year old 105F reading. To read their press releases you would think that tying a record was a personal accomplishment. Consecutive 90F days for DEN is merely a setting a 15 year record, big deal!!!
REPLY: Here is the aerial view of the Denver ASOS station at the new airport:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&q=39.8336%C2%B0+-104.658%C2%B0&ll=39.833774,-104.657602&spn=0.001168,0.002165&t=h&z=19&iwloc=addr
Interestingly, this other aerial view of the same spot does not show it, so it looks as if the station may have been moved in the last couple of years.
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=39.833593~-104.657352&style=h&lvl=18&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=8461325&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1
Boy do I get bent out of shape when I read about Denver records. Last sentence above should read “merely setting a 15 year record, big deal!!!”
Zoom out on the airport ASOS and you’ll see how close it is to the town of Bennett (Colorado record holder – 118F) versus downtown Denver in the foothills of the Rockies (record high 105F). The new airport will be setting record high temperatures for the foreseeable future (or until the staff at Boulder has collected all their performance bonuses).
“THE PREVIOUS 90 DEGREE RECORD STREAK PRIOR TO THIS YEAR WAS 18 DAYS SET WAY BACK IN 1878”
I know that Hansen claims that he makes an effort to account for UHI, but I have serious doubts about wheter these temp records do so at all. Making that streak back in 1878 very impressive indeed, occuring, as it did before Denver was paved, or much more than a cow town.
I wonder…….. If Hansen were confronted with the record cold temperature recorded in Denver, would he invalidate the observation and blame UHI?
Hmmmmm…………..
Record cold temperatures and snow would be beautiful during their convention.
1) Yes, Denver DIA’s temperature station has been moved at the new location. See the first page, right hand column of this paper for more information (best information I could find): http://einstein.atmos.colostate.edu/~mcnoldy/papers/PWBDM2007_NWD.pdf
2) The normal for Denver during the summer is 89 degrees and the mountains throw off clouds / thunderstorms typically in the afternoon. Because the weather usually moves west to east, DIA presumably has an hour or two more direct solar warming in the afternoons before the clouds roll over. Many sites along the Front Range did not log 90 degree days during DIA’s streak. The reference 90 degree records were recorded at Denver / Stapleton, approx. 10 miles to the west of DIA.
A posting on EUReferendum.com notes that both US presidential candidates favor “carbon cap-and-trade” policies and that they both support mainstreaming “renewable” energy sources into the national power grid (i.e., using wind and solar instead of coal and nuclear to generate electricity). If it is going to be a decade or three with below normal temperatures or worse, I am not looking forward to the increase in energy prices for home heating.
They go on to say:
“All the fashionable talk is of how fossil-fuels must be replaced by massively subsidised sources of “renewable” energy, such as vast arrays of solar panels, even though a recent study (which we pointed out in an earlier piece) showed that a kilowatt hour of solar-generated electricity costs between 25 and 30 cents, compared with 6 cents for power generated from coal and 9 cents for that produced by natural gas.
What is terrifying, writes Booker, is the extent to which America’s leading politicians seem oblivious to the economic realities of what they are proposing. The readiness of Messrs McCain and Obama to posture in front of pictures of virtually useless wind turbines symbolises that attitude perfectly.”
I know that Hansen claims that he makes an effort to account for UHI,
You do the man an injustice he very carefully adjusts for urban cooling. He makes a positive adjustment to raw urban temperatures in almost half the cases.
And NOAA certainly adjusts for UHI. In fact they revise their raw temperatures downward a full 0.1°F.
So there!
Record cold temperatures and snow would be beautiful during their convention.
Fear not. It would be wild swings brought on by AGW.
Hmm. You show 72 for Los Angeles. I show a max there of 85 for today. I live
60 mi. east of LA, in Riverside. It hit 94 today, which is about average.
I wonder what combination of weather events is responsible for Denver’s current coolness?
Now this is fun! http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_enh_west_loop.html
Nice winter storm headed our way? Woohooo!
I’m living in the hills north of Kyoto Japan, where we tend to get winter temperatures around 0°C and maximum summer temperatures of around 35°C. Anecdotally, the two major climate warming features that have been apparent over the the past 30~40 years have been a marked decrease in winter snowfall (as the boundary between areas of heavy and light winter snow has moved north along the Sea of Japan coast), and an extension as we moved into the nineties of high daytime temperatues through to late September. Previously, people expected things to cool more gradually with fresh breezes and clear blue skies from early September.
This year began with an unusually warm winter, followed by a slightly cooler spring than usual. From February to April, the jet stream brings yellow sand from the Gobi and air pollution from industrialized regions of northern China across our part of the world. Both of these phenonmena have increased significantly in recent years, and my instinct is that they are contributing to a marked atmospheric dimming in springtime in Western Japan.
The summer so far has been about as hot as the average for the past decade. But since August 15, the humidity has dropped and the maximum and minimum temperatures have dropped by about 4 or 5°C to levels we don’t usually see until well into September.
I’m just a weather layman and I don’t keep written records, but I enjoy reading and learning from this site, and since you don’t hear very often from this part of the world I thought I’d drop you a line.