Colorado Cities Snow Average website? (Breckenridge, Center: ski resorts, statistics, friendly)

[coboblack]

I have found a website that lists a cities average temp and snow fall...and now for the life of me I can find it...anyone have any links.

I took my wife and daughter to colorado springs in 07 so she could have a white christmas and although people told me chances are it wouldn't..it began to snow as we pulled into the city and it snowed a little on christmas day.

Now I wan't to take my son to colorado this year and want to stay in a city or at least bea able to drive to a city that has a better chance of having snow fall the week of christmas. Any ideas?

[COflower]

It's a hit or miss. If you want a higher probability that there's snow on the ground at least, you may want to pick one of the mountain towns. Summit county has a lot of options for a holiday stay but with Colorado weather, you never know.

[wanneroo]

I've been in winters where December has been almost completely dry and others where the snow pounded down day after day. Your best bet is the ski resorts.

[PokerMunkee]

How old is the son? I'd hit up Breckenridge or Keystone. If he's old enough, he'll love skiing/boarding! Oh, 100% guarantee you will "see" snow there, but no 100% guarantee you will see snow coming from the air.

[jazzlover]

This has been beaten to death many times before, but here goes, one more time. For climate statistics, the most user-friendly site is Weatherbase . You can also go to the Western Regional Climate Center site Climate Data Summaries site ( Western U.S. Climate Historical Summaries ) to research, but it is not quite as user-friendly as Weatherbase.

Now, here's the deal: Late fall and early winter (i.e., November and December) are generally low precipitation months in most of Colorado. The bigger ski areas have invested in lots of snowmaking equipment over the years after having a number of Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons with little snow on the ground. The snowiest months in Colorado are February through early April.

The northern mountains of the state tend to be favored with more likely early winter snowfall (December) than do the southern mountains--Steamboat is a good example of this. Because of Colorado's inland continental location, the weather from year-to-year is highly variable. Some years see lots of early season snow, some years none. Based on what is typical, the higher elevation areas of the northern part of the state west of the Continental Divide would statistically offer the best chance of snow on the ground and actual falling snow during December--but there are no guarantees.

A note to the moderators: Why don't you make a Colorado climate and weather subforum, with stickies for the web sites noted herein? It would save having the same questions asked over and over, and having to post the same website links time and again.

[jim9251]

Thank you for the Weatherbase link jazzlover, good info.

[wanneroo]

Much of it has to do with whether El Nino or La Nina is active in the Pacific Ocean