Climate
The Great Sand Dunes sit on a large area of "High Desert" land in the San Luis Valley, just west of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. The summer temperatures of this area are not typical of normal high desert lands, although the large variation between high and low temperatures are. Low temperatures during winter nights can be exceedingly cold, with many night temperatures dropping below zero in the winter. Further off of the great sand dunes in this high desert valley, precipitation numbers are exceedingly low. However, precipitation is still very low on the great sand dunes, averaging just above 11 inches of rainfall per year. The high evaporation rates on the dunes qualify the area as desert land still, even though precipitation exceeds 10 inches. It does snow on the dunes as well, but snowfall is usually very short lived in the dry and sunny climate of Colorado.
| Climate data for Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °F (°C) | 35.1 (1.7) |
39.2 (4.0) |
46.8 (8.2) |
56.3 (13.5) |
66.2 (19.0) |
76.6 (24.8) |
80.8 (27.1) |
77.9 (25.5) |
71.5 (21.9) |
60.5 (15.8) |
45.5 (7.5) |
36.4 (2.4) |
57.7 (14.3) |
| Average low °F (°C) | 9.8 (−12.3) |
13.9 (−10.1) |
21.0 (−6.1) |
28.0 (−2.2) |
36.8 (2.7) |
45.2 (7.3) |
50.5 (10.3) |
48.5 (9.2) |
41.7 (5.4) |
31.7 (−0.2) |
20.1 (−6.6) |
11.3 (−11.5) |
29.9 (−1.2) |
| Precipitation inches (mm) | 0.44 (11.2) |
0.37 (9.4) |
0.77 (19.6) |
0.89 (22.6) |
1.09 (27.7) |
0.86 (21.8) |
1.79 (45.5) |
2.00 (50.8) |
1.22 (31) |
0.86 (21.8) |
0.49 (12.4) |
0.36 (9.1) |
11.13 (282.7) |
| Snowfall inches (cm) | 6.8 (17.3) |
5.3 (13.5) |
8.3 (21.1) |
5.7 (14.5) |
1.4 (3.6) |
0.0 (0) |
0.0 (0) |
0.0 (0) |
0.1 (0.3) |
2.6 (6.6) |
4.7 (11.9) |
5.6 (14.2) |
40.5 (102.9) |
| Source: www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/climsmco.html | |||||||||||||
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