July 2005 in Denver earned a number of temperature distinctions. Basically, it was a month when shaggy dogs became hot dogs.
It could tie for the second-hottest month in Denver’s 134-year recorded weather history, matching July 1936 for that dubious honor. That’s if the temperatures forecast by the National Weather Service for the last three days of the month are on the mark.
The weather service rates such distinction based on average daily temperatures – the high temperature of the day plus the low temperature of the same day divided by two – and July 2005 could come in at 77.3.
Only the 77.8 average daily temperature for July 1934 was hotter, according to weather-service records. No day in the past 134 years was hotter than the 105 degrees recorded July 20. And only two days in that span were hotter than the 104 noted July 21. In all, seven daily temperature records have been set this month, six for record-high daily temperatures and one record-high daily minimum temperature. And that might not be all.
The record high for today is 99, set in 1995, and the weather service is forecasting a high of 96. One less cloud in the sky and it could mean yet another record.
This month also will end up among the 10 driest Julys Denver has had. Because there is a chance of thunderstorms in the city Saturday and Sunday, it looks like July could be from third to sixth on the list. The month also will tie for being the least-snowy July in Denver history. But no snow has ever been recorded in Denver during July.
The 105-degree high at 3:37 p.m. on the 20th tied for the hottest day ever in Denver. It also was 105 on Aug. 8, 1878. The more recent 105 came during a streak of five straight days of 100-degree temperatures, a feat that had occurred only once before in the Mile High City, in 2003.
There have been six days in July 2005 over 100, more than any month has had in Denver, and more than any year. That is more than 10 percent of all the 100-degree days ever recorded in Denver’s weather history. Also, it is nearly one-fifth, 19.4 percent, of all the days with temperatures 101 or more. While this July will be remembered for its time above the century mark, July 2000 had more days of 90 degrees or more. That year, 26 of the record 61 days of 90-or-above temperatures occurred in July.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
