Are people delusional about Denver's climate? (2013, house, college)

[reed303]

OP,
why are so many office buildings in downtown Minneapolis connected at the 2nd floor level by enclosed walkways ?

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by davidv

Let's look at some stats:

Average number of days when the temperature drops below freezing:
Denver 157, Minneapolis 148 -- I don't think that 9 days makes Denver's "winter" that much longer.

Average number of days when the temperature drops to 0 degrees:
Minneapolis 23, Denver 7 -- Denver is really cold for a week. Minneapolis is really cold for over 3 weeks.

Daily Winter mean temperature:
Minneapolis 19 degrees, Denver 31 degrees -- Denver wins, hands down

Average Daily winter low temperature:
Minneapolis 11 degrees, Denver 18 degrees -- Denver wins here, too.

Average Daily winter high temperature:
Denver 44 degrees, Minneapolis 27. -- Minneapolis doesn't see 44 degrees for months at a time.

Average winter snowfall:
Minneapolis 54 in., Denver 53.8 in -- Denver's melts right away; Minneapolis's snow lingers.

Average number of days with cloud or fog:
Minneapolis 169, Denver 120 -- Denver has 1 1/2 months more sun than Minneapolis.

Interestingly the normal daily mean temperature in the summer for both Minneapolis and Denver is 71 degrees. Denver is sunnier, Minneapolis is more humid. This affects the feel of the day, but humidity = bugs, so IMHO Denver wins.

Thank you for doing that research davidv, and posting it. Minneapolis is actually colder than Moscow in the winter, and hotter than Moscow in the summer. I'd venture to say it has the harshest winter climate of any large US city.
https://weatherspark.com/averages/30...-United-States
"Over the course of a year, the temperature typically varies from 7°F to 83°F and is rarely below -11°F or above 92°F."

https://weatherspark.com/averages/33...ian-Federation
"Over the course of a year, the temperature typically varies from 11°F to 75°F and is rarely below -7°F or above 84°F."

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

Comparing Denver's winter to any Midwestern city is laughable.

I've lived in the Midwest. Cloudy all the time. Humid. Biting cold. Denver is so much more pleasant in the winter time. Sunny and dry most of the time here. It makes a big difference, even if the mercury is the same.

Does it get really cold sometimes? Yes. Does it snow big sometimes? Yes. Do we get days of intense sun? Absolutely.

Is our weather mild? No. It's extremely variable. Not cloudy for 3 months in a row.

Now as for summertime, give me dry and 90 over humid and 90 any day of the week. I didn't know what a heat index was until I lived in the Midwest.

Isn't that the truth! I lived in Champaign, IL, same latitude as Denver, and lower altitude, but harsher winter. Sucky climate in general.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by reed303

OP,
why are so many office buildings in downtown Minneapolis connected at the 2nd floor level by enclosed walkways ?

Ski-in and Ski-out?

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Ski-in and Ski-out?

Not much skiing in MN, though they'll tell you otherwise.

[Mini-apple-less]

Originally Posted by reed303

OP,
why are so many office buildings in downtown Minneapolis connected at the 2nd floor level by enclosed walkways ?

Because it's cold in Minneapolis, however it's cold in Denver too yet people act like it's not.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Originally Posted by Tom Lennox 70

I'm wondering how often flights at the airport are delayed due to snow and ice in mid-December. My family is planning a trip to Hawaii and taking off from Washington Reagan airport and most flights to Hawaii on United where we have free tickets connect through Denver. Is there a big chance of flights being delayed or even cancelled? Or should we fly out of another airport with connections through Los Angeles or San Francisco instead? I've visited Colorado once but it was in the summertime, and even then it was considerably chiller than Kansas City or places in Utah (this was on a cross country road trip). I don't fly too much and have only been through one delayed flight and it was due to snow and ice in Cleveland, Ohio where they had to de-ice the plane twice.

Flying in the winter is always a crap shoot. Especially if you are making a connecting flight. If I remember correctly, weather in Denver forces DIA delays maybe just a handful of times each winter. You could do some Googling to see historic DIA delays or closures.

However, even if the weather may not be the cause of delays at the airport in Denver, it may create delays at the airports where the flights are coming from. For example, your connecting flight leaving Los Angeles for Hawaii may be coming from Chicago, which may be closed.

In all of our flights from Denver to Hawaii in the winter, we encountered very few delays. One winter, I think about 5 or 6 years ago, we flew out the day before a major blizzard that closed DIA for two days.

[Robert5]

yes, I think some people are delusional about Denver winters. more often than not when i tell people i am thinking of moving to Boston or NYC they comment on how cold the winters are there. But Boston winter is comparble to Denver, snd NYC winter is milder than Denver. fwiw, Denver is far milder than Milwaukee

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by valsteele

The Midwest does not have humid winters, though. The dewpoints in places like Chicago are very low during the winter.

Not true. Go look up the humidity charts for Chicago, Minneapolis, and Denver. Afternoon humidity in Chicago and Minneapolis from November-January is 70-80%. Denver's is 45-50%. Additionally the average daily high temperature in Denver is 10-15 degrees higher than Chicago and 15-20 degrees higher than Minneapolis.

Denver's coldest days occur right around the winter solstice, and the lowest average daily high is 45 degrees.
Minneapolis (23 degrees) and Chicago (32 degrees) both have their coldest days in mid-January.

By March 1, Denver's average daily high is 52, Chicago 42, and Minneapolis is 34.

Fairly mild compared to the Upper Midwest I'd say. "Winter" in Denver is a lot shorter than snow season. It can snow anytime from September to May, but on average it's never below freezing for weeks on end.

Is the south milder? Sure, but the south also has really crappy summers with stifling humidity, and lots of bugs and snakes - not to mention a lot of really overweight people who sit around all summer in the AC because it's too *&^%ing hot to go outside.

Sorry, but quality of life in Denver > the South HANDS DOWN. It's not even arguably close. I'll gladly deal with the "cold" and snow if it means being able to leave the windows open at night in July and August and spending even the hottest days of the year comfortably outdoors without sweating my arse off.

A little light reading.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...life/16960973/

Not a single southern state in the Top 10.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by valsteele

, however it's cold in Denver too yet people act like it's not.

If that's your opinion, you shouldn't come here. You should live somewhere that people fear the weather, stay inside and get fat instead of enjoying the outdoors and staying fit.

Who are these people who say it doesn't get cold here anyway? I believe you are building a straw man. It gets cold here. It just doesn't get miserable very often.

[woob]

The average temp in Denver may be mild, but it is hardly ever average here. I can probably count the number of 70 degree days per year on two hands