DENVER — We asked an AI chatbot to assign a personality to Denver's weather in May. It described the month as “friendly and adventurous.” And we would have to agree with this assessment.
May starts out with a normal high of 66 degrees and ends with a normal high of 77 degrees. The average high temperature is 72 degrees, about 10 degrees warmer than April. A very friendly attribute! We're starting the month very mild, with temperatures in the mid to upper 70s the first week of May.
But the month also likes to show off its “adventurous” side. As the National Weather Service puts it, “Just about anything can happen in the month of May when it comes to Denver's weather.” We'll have a better chance for afternoon thunderstorms and slightly cooler weather arriving by the end of the first week of May.
May is considered Denver’s wettest month of the year. The monthly mean for precipitation is 2.12 inches. The wettest May in Denver history (and wettest month ever) brought 8.57 inches of precipitation in 1876.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, May 2023 should see a normal level of precipitation.
We don’t typically see a lot of days above 90 degrees. One is the average number of days Denver gets that hot in May. And dropping below freezing is rare, too. Denver sees about two days on average of a low temperature of 32 degrees or below.
The coldest May in Denver occurred in 1917 when the mean temperature was 48.7 degrees. The warmest May in Denver was in 1934 when the mean temperature was 64.7 degrees. May temperatures in Denver are expected to be average this year, according to NOAA.
Denver7 Chief Meteorologist Mike Nelson provides an outlook on May weather and explains some of the extreme weather statistics and the potential for snow. Watch the video in the player below:
And don’t think since the calendar says May we’re free from snow. The month is considered part of Denver’s snow season, which runs from September to May, but it ranks as the least snowiest month of that period. Denver sees an average of 1.1 inches of snow in May.
The snowiest May on record occurred in 1898 when 15.5 inches fell during the month. And more recently, in 2003, Denver experienced a relatively snowy May when 7 inches fell during the month.
As stated above, May is typically the first full month of Colorado's severe weather season, which ramps up by the end of the month and lasts through August. During this period, warm Gulf moisture will occasionally pick fights with cold fronts, creating periods of instability, thunderstorms, hail and sometimes tornadoes.
The tornado threat in Colorado increases rapidly in May and continues through August. The state sees an average of 27 tornadoes during May and June, with June being the busiest month with an average of 17 tornadoes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
According to the NWS, there have been more than 2,100 tornado events recorded in Colorado and at least five deaths related to twisters since 1950. They have occurred in most areas of the state, but historically 95% of tornadoes occur along and east of Interstate 25. Most occur between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.
The most tornado-prone county in Colorado — and the entire country — is Weld County, which has seen 268 tornadoes since 1950. The city and county of Denver has seen 16 tornadoes in the same period.
Damaging hail is also a concern in May. Storms can produce hailstones up to the diameter of a fully-grown grapefruit. In a typical season, which is from mid-April to mid-August, the Front Range sees about three or four catastrophic hailstorms, according to the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association.
Colorado, along with Nebraska and Wyoming, makes up what meteorologists call “hail alley.” The area averages seven to nine hail days per year. Colorado had the second-highest number of hail claims in the US from 2013 to 2015 (182,591), second only to Texas.
Hail over a quarter in diameter — depending on wind speeds — can kill humans, pets or livestock if it strikes in the correct location. One death and numerous injuries have occurred in Colorado as a result of hail.
In this Denver7 360 In-Depth deep dive 📈
- Preview Denver's May weather 🌤
- Check the normal high/low by day ☀️
- Compare record low and high temperatures ☀️
- A look at the beginning of severe weather season 🌪
- The wettest Mays on record 🌧
To view May stats and data fullscreen on your computer or phone click here.
