Denver Weather: Is February The New March In Terms Of Snowfall?
DENVER (CBS4) - In this headline I pose the question, "Is February the new March for Denver in terms of snowfall?" With snow on 12 of 19 days so far this month, it sure feels like it.
As I was digging through some climate data preparing for my reports this morning something jumped out at me while looking through Denver's top 20 snowiest list for February. Four of the top 20 years have happened since 2012.
Another thing that stood out was February recorded more snow than March on 6 out of 10 years between 2010-2019. Could this be a total coincidence or could it be a trend as the planet's climate changes?
I did take a look back to see if February has beat March more than 6 times during any other decade and the answer is yes! Between 1910-1919 it happened 7 times.
Number Of Times February Snow Was Higher Than March In Denver
1883-1889 (5*) note we don't have February snowfall data for 1880-1882
1890-1899 (5)
1900-1909 (3)
1910-1919 (7)
1920-1929 (2*) one of these was a tie with March
1930-1939 (4)
1940-1949 (2)
1950-1959 (1)
1960-1969 (4)
1970-1979 (2)
1980-1989 (4)
1990-1999 (3)
2000-2009 (2)
2010-2019 (6)
Number Of Times February Snowfall Made Top 20 List Per Decade
1883-1889 (0)
1890-1899 (1)
1900-1909 (1)
1910-1919 (3)
1920-1929 (2)
1930-1939 (3)
1940-1949 (1)
1950-1959 (2)
1960-1969 (3)
1970-1979 (0)
1980-1989 (0)
1990-1999 (1)
2000-2009 (0)
2010-2019 (3)
Now that 2020 has made it into the top 20 list the year 1893 will drop to 21st place which will change the list above slightly.
So back to the question I posed at the beginning about February being the new March? It's probably not fair to say "yes" simply because the data shows a lot of variability and no specific trend through time. But it will be fun to watch and see how this might change in the years to come.