Denver Weather: Coldest Morning In A Year, And No Quick Warmup This Time

DENVER (CBS4) - Many winter storms that impact Denver and the Front Range arrive quickly and depart just as fast. And while falling snow is now long gone, temperatures will be very slow to recover after this storm.

The official temperature in Denver Thursday morning was -11 degrees which was recorded shortly after 5 a.m. Certainly a frigid start to the day, but not quite a record. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Denver on February 3 is -18 degrees from 1883.

After such a cold morning, temperatures will struggle to warmup despite plenty of sunshine. Thursday afternoon will only be in the teens for most areas around Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins and across the Eastern Plains. Mountain areas will have similar temperatures and the only region in Colorado that may reach freezing is the Four Corners.

Then another bitterly cold night is in store going into Friday morning. However, it will not be as cold as Thursday morning with most areas staying closer to 0 degrees instead of dropping far below zero. Of course that will not be the case in the mountains and especially in mountain valleys where sub zero temperatures will be common again.

Late Friday morning Denver should finally climb above freezing for the first time since Monday evening. The city will be near 85 hours below freezing by that time. But afternoon temperatures will never get higher higher than the 30s.

The weekend won't be as cold but temperatures likely won't climb to normal or slightly above normal until early next week. All the snow on the ground will keep temperatures below their potential. At this time, the next chance for any additional snow in the metro area looks to be more than week away.