What's The Weather REALLY Like in Denver?
Just about everyone who has hosted someone from out of town in Denver has heard the complaint that this weather (whatever it happens to be) is not the way they were told the weather in Denver would be.
Primarily that is because the only real way to describe Denver weather is chaotic and unpredictable. There are a couple of reasons for this but the first comes from the science of geology. It is a known geological law that the weathering rate (the rate at which rocks are eroded away) is greatest at the peaks of mountains and least at the lowest altitudes. This is because the primary agent of weathering is ice wedging caused by the freeze/thaw cycle. Basically the freeze/thaw cycle occurs when precipitation of any kind falls on a rock and to the degree that the rock is porous, soaks into it. Then when the temperature drops below the freezing point of water, the water turns into ice which has a greater volume than water, thus hydraulically breaking up the rock. Then the ice melts, more precipitation falls, it freezes again and the process starts all over again. It is estimated that at the tops of some peaks there are literally hundreds of freeze/thaw cycles every year.
Because Denver is a great deal higher in altitude than most of America, it is, therefore, subject to many more freeze/thaw cycles than cities at lower altitudes (which explains the horrendous pothole problem).
The other factor is the combination of influences that affect Denver's weather. Storms can blow in from anywhere from Canada to Mexico and along the Front Range cold weather from the arctic. There is an expression that in the wintertime the only thing between Denver and the North Pole is a barb wire fence, which is to say that there are no major mountain ranges to protect the Front Range from frigid weather to the north.
But that is balanced with warm weather from the gulf creating chaotic storms sometimes resulting in tornados (80% of the world's tornados occur in the United States almost all of these are east of the Rockies) in the spring and summer or upslope blizzards in the winter.
The transition from winter to summer is sometimes abrupt as well. My grandfather used to say that "spring came on a Tuesday this year, but I had to work so I missed it."
