Climate
The Colorado National Monument sits on a large area of "High Desert" in Western Colorado. Summer temperatures are usually very hot, while winter temperatures can be generally cold at night. It does snow, but the snow usually melts very quickly in the dry and sunny climate of Colorado. Rainfall is scarce, and although the yearly precipitation averages are just above 10 inches, the exceedingly high evaporation rate classifies this area as desert land.
| Climate data for Colorado National Monument | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °F (°C) | 37.4 (3.0) |
43.6 (6.4) |
52.9 (11.6) |
63.8 (17.7) |
74.1 (23.4) |
85.8 (29.9) |
91.9 (33.3) |
88.6 (31.4) |
79.8 (26.6) |
66.2 (19.0) |
49.2 (9.6) |
38.7 (3.7) |
64.3 (17.9) |
| Average low °F (°C) | 19.0 (−7.2) |
23.4 (−4.8) |
30.0 (−1.1) |
37.7 (3.2) |
47.1 (8.4) |
56.5 (13.6) |
62.8 (17.1) |
60.1 (15.6) |
52.2 (11.2) |
41.1 (5.1) |
29.0 (−1.7) |
20.6 (−6.3) |
40.0 (4.4) |
| Precipitation inches (mm) | 0.84 (21.3) |
0.68 (17.3) |
1.03 (26.2) |
0.94 (23.9) |
0.99 (25.1) |
0.66 (16.8) |
0.85 (21.6) |
1.25 (31.8) |
1.01 (25.7) |
1.14 (29) |
0.93 (23.6) |
0.78 (19.8) |
11.10 (281.9) |
| Snowfall inches (cm) | 9.3 (23.6) |
4.7 (11.9) |
4.7 (11.9) |
1.3 (3.3) |
0.1 (0.3) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0.1 (0.3) |
0.7 (1.8) |
3.6 (9.1) |
7.3 (18.5) |
31.8 (80.8) |
| Source: www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/climsmco.html | |||||||||||||
Read more about this topic: Colorado National Monument
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