Colorado in 2024: fourth warmest year on record

Just 2 all-time lows compared to 120 all-time highs

by Allen Best

It was another warm year in Colorado, part of a theme. Russ Schumacher, the state climatologist, reports 2024 was the 4^th warmest on record, 3 degrees warmer than the 20^th century average when temperatures across the state were averaged for the year.

Eight of the 10 warmest years in Colorado’s recorded history have been since 2012.

From his base in Akron, 115 miles northeast of Denver, Joel Schneekloth observed temperatures that fit in with this trend.

“We really had warm days but even warmer nights,” reported Schneekloth, who is a regional water specialist with the Colorado Water Institute. “But we didn’t have a string of 100 degree days like we had in 2012 and 2002. We had 100 just once or twice this year.”

To be clear, it can still get cold in Colorado. This is not quite up to Lake Wobegon standards, where all the children are above average. But all the action has been on the high side of the thermometer — or on the lack of cold.. That was particularly true in December.

The Colorado Climate Center reported 120 new all-time high temperatures along with 25 tied records. Nights, as Schneekloth noted, were also warm. There were 129 records for the high minimum temperature.

On the flip side, it had two all-time cold temperatures.

Notable was the warmth of December. “It was very warm across Colorado, or perhaps more accurately, there was a distinct lack of cold,” Schumacher wrote.

“It really was the lack of any real cold in December that led to the record-breaking temperatures for the month,” he told Big Pivots.

“Highs in the low 70s aren’t especially remarkable in December, but many stations set records for the warmest low temperature for December. For example, at Sedgwick, the lowest temperature in December was 11F – the previous warmest low temperature for December was 9F. This is true at numerous stations in northeastern Colorado. Fort Collins only got down to 15 in December. The previous record was 12 Akron only got to 10; the previous record was 8.”

At many stations, the second or third warmest low for December was just the previous year (2023), a December with a similar lack of cold.

Precipitation, on the other hand, was above average statewide but not abnormally so, 35th wettest in records across the past 130 years. The story of rain and snow, however, was not uniform. The southern San Luis Valley had its wettest calendar year on record. Lands north of Fort Collins and Greeley, along the Wyoming border, much drier than average.