Snow Months (Denver, Colorado Springs, Black Forest: how much, house, living)

[musicismycoffee]

My family is looking at the possibility of moving from San Diego to Colorado Springs. Being wimpy Southern Californians, we're hesitant about the snow. What is the average amount of snow months in Colorado Springs?

[MtnFlyer]

Here's a link to a post by Jazzlover that will allow you to see historical snow depths etc. for hundreds of stations in a monthly report type format:

//www.city-data.com/forum/color...e-weather.html

[kjd]

I'm a native of San Diego, moved my family to Colorado Springs two years ago. The two winters that I've been here have been very mild. I'm not sure how much snow has fallen but it doesn't seem like much. Even when it does snow it melts fast as the sun shines alot. Although my wife and I love San Diego we haven't regretted moving here for one second. Its a great place to live and raise a family.

If you haven't already I would suggest taking one or two trips out here to spend some time and get a feel for the city. We did that and it helped us make our decision.

[TheBeach]

Originally Posted by musicismycoffee

My family is looking at the possibility of moving from San Diego to Colorado Springs. Being wimpy Southern Californians, we're hesitant about the snow. What is the average amount of snow months in Colorado Springs?

That's hard to say. Honest. This (cough, cough) "winter" has been a bust. It would get cold, windy, and cloudy, but actual "snow" - Ha! Not enough to bother you. But in other years we would get some serious snow, but usually it's in the Fall and Spring, not much in the Winter.

Guessing when and how much snow we'll get is a forecaster's nightmare. I have never lived in a place where the forecast is usually 110% wrong

But you will get snow if you live here, but it's not the type of snow that sticks around and causes you grief for weeks and months on end. It's more along the lines of: gets cold, windy, snows, and the next day the roads are clear enough to travel and you go shopping and to work as normal. And three days later, you would be hard pressed to believe we ever had any snow at all.

But sometimes we do get some serious snow, but it seems to be rare these days.

[Userdavey]

It's hit or miss.
06-07 was very snowy with big snow on Halloween and several other big snows throughout the season. By "big snow", I mean a foot or more with a few days of slick driving and drifts a couple feet deep or more.
07-08 was not snowy at all, but it was very cold overall. I remember 10 below zero a few times and lots of wind.
08-09 has been the driest I have seen in the 9 years I have lived here. But still cold.

It is always cold in the winter here. Lots of people will bark that it is nice here because they are from colder climates, but if you ask me, if it gets below freezing at night, that is cold. If I cannot grow tomatoes or if the heat has to kick on, that is cold.

Sure, it can hit 60 any time of the winter, but only for an hour or so.
Whenever trying to figure out a climate for a particular area, always look at the low temps. Those are more important. Because if it does get to 60 here in January, that day will go like this:

6 am 30 degrees
9 am 46 degrees
noon 60 degrees
3 pm 54 degrees
6 pm 33 degrees
9 pm 23 degrees

And if it's windy, it's generally miserable, which happens a lot.
A weird weather thing that happens here is the cold front. We get cold fronts all year, even in the summer. But the weird part is that the high temps will come in the morning. Then around 11 am, when it should be warming up, the front rolls in and the temp drops very quickly. And we get the "warm before the storm" a lot too. The day before the storm, even a couple hours before it comes, it will be the warmest and you'll be thinking that the weatherman is stoned.

Weathermen cannot predict the weather here as accurately as they can in California. Several times when we have gotten snow, there was no mention of it. And they will get all hyped up about a big "Albuquerque Low", which is a low pressure system that goes from west to east over Albuquerque and can dump several feet of the stuff, and then nothing happens.

Exactly 4 years ago, we closed on our house and it snowed 18 inches and there were 5 foot drifts. That was April 9, 2005.

Generally this is the order of most snow to least:

March is snowiest
then April
then October
then the others
We will get snow in May too. And early June and late September too.

The part about the winters here that is nice is the sun. It comes out quite a bit in the winter, which is really nice if you are from the Midwest or back east.

[jazzlover]

Any moron can predict California weather. Mark Twain opined that one didn't have to look out the window to see what the weather was in California--just look at the calendar. Colorado weather doesn't work that way. As I've posted before, there is nothing "precious" or "cute" about Colorado weather. It's capricious and unpredictable--and occasionally violent. Benign it is not. It has all of the characteristics of a mid-latitude continental climate, with dramatic variations caused by mountain elevations and air currents thrown into the mix.

Yes, the ground is bare in much of Colorado over nearly the whole winter, but occasional big snowstorms are not uncommon in most places in the state. It is possible to have 80° variations from low to high temperature within a few days of each other in winter. And it's possible to have hail big enough and deep enough to turn the ground white in summer (and, on occasion, beat the living hell out of your roof and your car).

[tfox]

The mountains CAN get snow 12 months out of the year, so you'd have to say that all months are snow months there. The Front Range, including Denver, has at one time gotten at least a trace of snow September - June (June 5th, I believe, is the latest event). Only July and August have never had any amount of snow in any form.

That's what COULD happen. But in practice that's more just weather trivia than anything. What does happen varies from winter to winter. In practice, it's quite uncommon that we see an entire month of continuous snow cover, but it's not unheard of -- it happened as recently as a couple years ago where the ground was covered from late December till Februrary. This winter, snow has melted quite quickly after falling, never leaving much of a trace a couple days after the event.

That said, weather here is odd that we do get snow in the late spring, teven the same time that your average east coast city has long since kissed snow goodbye. That snow doesn't last long, but it does occur with some regularity, and this year has proved no exception to that.

[Mongohateswinter]

Good luck... as you can tell by my name, I wouldn't last there......

[Userdavey]

Yup...when winter's over, the snow begins...

[beezle1]

A lot depends on where you live too. In town, probably not much snow, even on the worst days, but near the foothills, Black Forest, Woodland Park, an entirely different story with the same storm.