Denver residents just experienced the rainiest June in the city in at least the last 150 years, according to the National Weather Service at Boulder.
The city received a whopping 6.10 inches of rain and broke a 140-year-old record for June rainfall. That was set in June 1882, when the city received 4.96 inches of rain in June, the weather service said. The agency started keeping records in 1872.
Usually, average June rainfall tops out at about 1.94 inches, said National Weather Service meteorologist David Barjenbruch.
“We were over three times the amount of normal precipitation for the month,” he said.
Additionally, the total rain in May and June this year — 11.63 inches of rain — was the rainiest the city has ever been in those two months, going back to the start of the weather service’s record keeping in 1872, Barjenbruch said.
“(That’s) nearing our normal annual precipitation, almost, and we’ve had that in the last two months,” he said. “It’s an almost ridiculous amount of rain.”
The rain this spring was caused by a low pressure trough that moved into the region and stayed, he said. The low pressure created showers, storms and generally “unsettled” weather, Barjenbruch said. The city usually sees its rainy spring weather solely in May, not June, he added.
“Everything has been delayed this year,” he said. “The unsettled weather we had in June, that’s usually our May weather. And then by June we dry out. This year we are running at least two weeks behind on that whole pattern, if not more.”
The city will this week see a few more rain showers, storms and cooler weather before summer heat really kicks in beginning a week or two later, Barjenbruch predicted.
He said meteorologists will be watching to see whether a hot and dry summer dries out spring vegetation — a condition that in the past has fueled destructive wildfires — but that it’s possible periodic rains through the summer will prevent that from happening.
“Hopefully we will have continued off and on rains, and we don’t dry out that severely,” he said.
In addition to being the rainiest June in Denver, last month was also the sixth most rainy month of any month in the city since 1872, the weather service said.
Denver’s most rainy month ever was May 1876, when the city received 8.57 inches of rain.
