DENVER – Christmas in Denver felt like anything but on Thursday as the Mile High City broke the previous December 25 record high of 69 degrees set back in 2005 warming today to 71 degrees.
That means this year was the hottest Christmas day ever recorded in Denver.
If you were out and about on Thursday, no doubt you saw plenty of Denverites in shorts.
On Christmas Eve, Denver7’s Ryan Fish chatted with people enjoying a warm day at City Park.“Normally we’re skiing this time of year, so this is unusual,” said one Denverite.
A family visiting from Austin told Denver7 they were chasing the snow, but no luck this year.
So with no white Christmas in Denver this year, we wanted to go back and see just how often there’s been one around here.
A lot of folks who live outside of Colorado probably believe it’s always snowy and cold on Christmas in Denver, but it might surprise you to know that’s often not the case.
And this December has sure been a warm one.
National Weather Service (NWS) in Boulder records define a white Christmas in two different ways: Either already having one inch or more of snow on the ground or by having 0.1 of measurable snowfall.
In 125 years of records, there have only been 46 times of Denverites waking up to an inch or more of snow on the ground. That amounts to a 37 percent chance.
A white Christmas in Denver is even less common if you define it as measurable snowfall of 0.1. Snowfall measurement records started earlier – back in 1882 – and by that standard, Denver has only seen a white Christmas only 20 times out of the 143 years.
That probability drops to 14 percent.In terms of most measurable snowfall on Christmas in Denver, 2007 holds the top spot where 7.8 inches of snowfall was recorded.
Christmas 1982 was one to remember where a Christmas Eve blizzard dumped on Denver.
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A look back at Denver's biggest snowstorms
The “nightmare before Christmas” storm brought 24 inches of snow to the ground for Christmas Day, pushing that year to the top of the charts in terms of snow depths on Christmas.
So when was the last time Denver saw a white Christmas? It looks like 2022. While Christmas Day that year brought a temperature of 49 degrees, there was already 2 inches of snow on the ground.
In 2023, a blizzard impacted Colorado’s northeastern plains, but at Denver’s official snow gauge out at DIA, there was no snow. According to NWS records, parts of southwest Denver did have snow on the ground that year.
As for when it will feel more like winter, which officially started on Sunday — Here's what Denver7 meterologist Stacey Donaldson had to say:
"Saturday night it will be cold with a couple of inches possible in Denver, but because it’s been so warm most of that will melt."
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