Denver’s Not So Unusual Weather!
September 9, 2020
By Paul Homewood
h/t mjr
The BBC’s weatherman has picked up on the rapid switch in weather this week in Denver, where heatwave conditions have turned into snow within a couple of days:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/54058325
Although he does not mention climate change, he does call the weather switch “pretty extreme”.
Temperatures have dropped by 66F over the last couple of days (from daily highs to daily lows):
http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/
However, as the NWS conveniently point out, such large shifts are actually pretty common:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
That snow must be caused by Man-Made Global Warming!
Repent NOW! or the boogie man will get you (if his EV hasn’t run out of charge).
I remember once playing soccer in Houston when a blue norther came through. The temperature dropped from 75 deg F to 35 deg F as the ball moved from one end of the pitch to the other, we all hit this instant cold wall of air as the wind changed from a Gulf southerly to the continental norther. Canada has also been extremely cold recently.
When somewhere’s a bit hot – California say – somewhere else is going to be a bit cold. Even if Climate Change were real, there isn’t enough additional energy in the system to make that not true.
That is much more common in Dallas. I have seen the temperature drop from the 80s down to 30 in a half hour. Watching cars pirouetting on the flash ice on Central was an experience never to be forgotten
And in Austin Tx – I was looking after an RAF VC10 crew who had flown Prince Charles in for a visit. The temperature on the ramp was 86°F. We popped out for a meal – the crew laughed when they met me carrying a heavy coat ‘what do you need that for – it is boiling here?’ When we left the restaurant it was 33°F (windchill MUCH lower!)
Extreme? Only in the alarmist’s tiny brain…
I see the BBC’s ‘Senior environment Correspondent’ (Amos?) is having palpitations about the find that tunnels have been found within and under the Thwaites glacier and that these carry warmer water. This, it is claimed is causing the glacier to melt. Strangely, I didn’t hear any reference to the underground volcanoes that might be the cause o the warming….
Tunnel valleys under the ancient ice sheets are well documented in Europe, and in the Early Permian of western Australia where they can be mapped and by inference similarly were common under ice sheets.
As a long time resident of Denver, I can assure you that such sudden temperature swings are not at all unusual – tends to be known locally as an “arctic express” weather pattern. However, what is unusual here is that it is happening so early and is accompanied by snow. Looking at the records you have quoted, none of them except the current year appear to have occurred in September and the typical first snowfall in Denver is mid October. I saw that over a foot of snow was forecast for last night in the foothills – it will be interesting to see the totals when published later today.
Yes, standard continental weather when you get an airmass direction reversal. I was in Dayton, Ohio in September 2006, in a T shirt sunbathing in the sunshine in the morning but then wrapped up as it snowed in the afternoon.
Rapid weather changes likely took place after 1917. It was the coldest year on record in the US. Just four years later 1921 was the warmest year on record (until NOAA lowered it). Very clever?
I think that huge temperature swings are common in the States. I remember in the early 80’s waking up in Connecticut with a minus reading in the thermometer and later in the afternoon walking about at Niagara in shirt sleeves and a temperature in the 70’s F shivering as a cold blast of air wafted up from the ice filled gorge.
I was lucky enough to live in Colorado for a while and we remember visiting friends and having dirnks in the gardent in the sunshine then driving back into a snow storm. It does have extrememe weather, the snow comes thick and fast, the sun comes out and melts it off the roads and afternoon severe rain is common but then an hour or so later the sun dries it off.
Whoops forgot the spell checker drink and garden.
still reported as record temperatures by the GMB weather totty this morning
Don’t Denver folk have a saying about their climate? Something like “if you don’t like the weather hang around another day”?