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A Dry Start To Denver's Snow Season

A series of storms the last couple of weeks have provided the mountains with some amazing snow--Colorado's ski resorts have seen a phenomenal start to their ski season with some of the best snow conditions in about a decade. While they are measuring the snow in feet the Denver metro area and eastern plains hasn't seen much of the white stuff.

Recently I received an email from a Denver viewer asking where is our snow? the answer is the colder than normal sea surface temperatures in the pacific ocean (La Nina) is contributing to our lack of snow over the eastern half of the state because the moisture gets pushed northward into the pacific northwest. November is typically Denver's 2nd snowiest month with about 11 inches of snow but this year Denver has only recorded 1.5 inches.

When I looked over the past 20 years to see how this fall compares to other years the numbers are interesting--The last time we recorded limited snow during the fall season wasn't that long ago, the 2008-2009 snow season got off to a dry start too. While there are a few years that didn't see much snow in October and November there is one year that had an extremely dry fall, it dates back more than 100 years ago. Here's a look at some of the snow seasons that started off relatively dry.

During the 2008-2009 snow season

October - trace

November 1.7 inches

2003-2004 season:

October- no snow

November- 2.9 inches

1998-1999 season:

October- no snow

November- 4 inches

1988-1989 snow season:

October- no snow

November- 2.8 inches

1899-1900 snow season:

October- 0,8 inches

November- Trace

- by  Jennifer Zeppelin

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