How bad are the winters in Denver? (neighborhoods, high school)

[ragnarkar]

So my wife's on her academic job search and was invited to apply for CU Denver. While I've visited Colorado numerous times throughout my life and really enjoyed the mountains and hiking, I've never visited in the winter. The snowfall statistics look a bit scary and I remember there being snow even around labor day a couple of years ago.

I grew up in Michigan and really hated the snow and couldn't wait to leave and endured through every single winter in high school until 2001 when I got accepted to college in California. Since then, I've lived in either California (in places where it almost never snowed) and Texas (where it may snow once or twice a year.)

Snow itself is no deal breaker for me. What I really despised, when growing up in Michigan, was seeing snow on the ground for weeks with no end in sight and not seeing much sun at the same time. And since the ground is flat there, it's basically all white everywhere you look for many weeks of the year. From what I hear, this sort of thing is not that common in Denver which might make winters more tolerable. However, the catch seems to be that snow can happen far more often throughout the year except July and August.

How often does Denver go through a period where a ton of snow stays on the ground for weeks and you don't see much sun during the period which seems more common in the Midwest and Northeast? That's the only deal breaker for me.. OK, maybe one other: neighborhoods where the residential roads are never or seldom plowed and having to drive on the snow daily in order to get out.

[Stylo]

Denver is such a different winter from Michigan. It’s drier and much more sun, so the same temps will feel much warmer. The snow also comes and goes. It melts quickly. It’s a much more tolerable winter.

[pikabike]

WHERE specifically in Denver, or do you include the metro area as well?

The big variations in elevation, terrain, exposure, and vegetation can make one place intolerably wintery while only 10 miles away it is milder.

If what you mean is within City of Denver, long stretches of being snowed over are unusual. The sun is so strong even in winter that it melts or sublimates away fairly soon unless there’s been a big snowfall or several smaller ones right after another. Those things do happen; they’re just not typical in Denver. Conditions swing wildly up and down.

Not as deeply wintery as the far northern interior states but not as dry and warm as Albuquerque, or Dallas for that matter. Denver is at the edge of the central Great Plains, so use that as the base reference.

[davebarnes]

If you move here, your reaction after one Winter will be: Denver does not have "real" winters.
I say this as someone who grew up in the Northeast.

[Ruth4Truth]

Denver is still the Southwest, not the Upper Midwest or Northeast. The weather pattern you describe doesn't exist in this region, with the possible exception of Flagstaff, AZ.

Snowfalls are relatively light. Within a couple of days, it's melted off at least to the point that the small residential streets are drivable. (Main streets are cleared immediately.) There may be a little accumulation left in people's yards, but that melts off within another day or two, too. Then you get sun for another week or two or three, then another snowfall, followed pretty quickly by a melt-off.

[brightdoglover]

I lived for 45 years in the Boston area and now live in SW Colorado and follow the weather for Denver. There is no comparison. Blasting sun most days, powder snow versus heavy wet snow, no slushy muck for days or weeks.

[Rigeleer]

As a fellow snow hater, I agree with the previous posters. Denver winters are not what I would call "nice", but the average high temperature in January is in the mid-40s. Denver does not get the endless weeks of soul-crushing gloom and snow on the ground that Detroit endures. The weather see-saws a lot in winter and spring. Denver gets several snow storms a year, sometimes in October or March (in fact, March is the snowiest month but average highs are in the 50s) and sometimes has several days below freezing, but the snow always melts, evaporates, or sublimates within several days leaving dry streets. Although the average annual snowfall is more than four feet, it really doesn't seem like it because for most of the winter the ground is dry.



One way to compare the climates is to note that in the winter months, Denver expects to receive around 50% more solar energy each month than Detroit.

[reed303]

When we moved from Chicago to Denver, some winter differences we noticed were:
1. snow in the morning was gone by noon
2. any piles of snow did not melt, they just shrink, evaporating with no runoff
3. slush is unknown
4. nobody wears galoshes
5. around town, snow tires were not required, all-weathers were good. (either the roads were clear enough, or so bad you had no business being on road anyway. No in-between.

In summer, you don't sweat in the shower :-)

[modest]

I went for a run this morning when it was 53 F in a breathable athletic t-shirt and running shorts. In the sun, it felt too hot at times. Next week, it's going to be in the single digits.

Denver's winters are bipolar.

[bluescreen73]

I spent half my childhood in Wisconsin, and the other half in one of the coldest parts of Colorado (not Denver). I'd take winters here over the Upper Midwest 100% of the time. It's not cloudy and gloomy, the average high temps are not near or below freezing, and the snow doesn't stick around for weeks on end.

It can snow in May, and it can snow in September. Usually snow season is early October through late April/early May. We didn't get any measurable snow this year until December. If anybody tells you Denver's gotten snow in June, they're misinformed. Denver has not had measurable snow in June in roughly 70 years.

I've also lived in the Texas Triangle, and I would take a Denver winter over the asstastic May-September climate of DFW. DFW, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio summers suck. Incessantly hot and humid. You run AC 24/7 for months. Here, the A/C runs for 4-6 hours a day, and our windows are open at night pretty much all summer.

Don't even get me started on outdoor recreation. Other than water, DFW and Houston are terrible for outdoor lovers. Austin and San Antonio are a little better, but Denver still destroys them.

Another added bonus - our electrical grid is properly winterized so you don't have to worry about freezing to death during a cold snap like you have to with Texas's for-profit, third-world pile of garbage.

It's near 60 right now, and I have some windows open and the heater off.