Denver will not exceed the record for the most days with snow on the ground despite a winter filled with seven straight weekends of winter storms.
The snow melted just three days short of setting the new record, said Byron Louis, program manager at the National Weather Service’s forecast office in Boulder.
“We came real close,” he said. “But as of Tuesday, there was no measurable snow on the ground. We lasted 61 days.”
So this winter’s snow coverage was good enough for second place, going back to when measurements were first kept in the early 1900s.
The snow had to last until Thursday to break the record of 63 days, set between Nov. 26, 1983, and Jan. 27, 1984.
The third-longest stretch – 60 days – was set between Dec. 11, 1913, and Jan. 29, 1914.
Measurements taken at 6 a.m. Tuesday on the northeast side of old Stapleton Airport near Smith Road and Havana Street showed there was less than a half-inch of snow left.
That was not enough to count toward the record.
On Monday, 2 inches of snow covered the ground, but that melted away under sunny skies and 50-plus-degree temperatures.
Forecasts call for temperatures to rise into the 60s toward the weekend.
