Between 310 reports of severe hail to more than 10 inches of rain for many areas of the Front Range, June 2023 was a month for Colorado’s weather record books.
The good news? All of this moisture means that Colorado is drought-free for the first time since 2019. That’s a big improvement from just three months earlier, when 38% of the state was in some form of drought.
The Colorado Climate Center, based in the Colorado State University Department of Atmospheric Science, tracks weather patterns across the state and releases a report with some of the key findings each month. This graphic showcases everything from high and low June temperatures to the place with the most rainfall:
Here’s a look at some of the other highlights from the June climate summary:
Record tornado and hail reports
June 21 was a day for the record books, with more than 36 tornadoes observed in the Centennial State – the most observed in a single day in Colorado history.
That same day, another weather event also captured headlines, when 2-inch hail injured nearly 100 concert goers at Red Rocks Amphitheater just outside of Denver. This was one of multiple significant hail storms during the month, including a rare late-night event across the Eastern Plains on June 27.
Overall, there were 310 preliminary reports of hail more than 1-inch in diameter, which if confirmed would be the most in a single month in Colorado’s recorded history.
Cool days with relatively warm nights
For much of the state, daytime high temperatures were much lower than normal, but the cloudy, humid and rainy June weather kept nighttime lows actually slightly warmer than the 20th century average.
With this being said, parts of El Paso County did observe a top 10 coldest June on record. Statewide, Colorado experienced its 30th coolest June (the last time temperatures were this mild in June was 2009).
Multiple counties experience record June moisture
Elbert, Morgan, Lincoln, Douglas and El Paso counties all experienced their wettest Junes on record. And speaking of Elbert County, this marked its second rainiest month, just shy of the totals from May 2015.
This map shows the parts of the state that experienced their wettest month since 1895 in June 2023:
Regions experience nearly annual average rainfall in 2 months
Statewide, it was the sixth wettest June since we started keeping track – a number that might have been higher were it not for near to below normal precipitation on the Western Slope. The last time Colorado experienced this much June rainfall was in 1995.
Speaking of all that rain, more than 10 inches of moisture fell in many areas of the Front Range and Eastern Plains from May 1 to June 30 – which in many areas accounts for nearly the average annual rainfall in two months.
Sign up for the Colorado Monthly Climate Summary here: https://col.st/KkS3O
