Spring seemed more like summer in downtown Denver today, as bright sun and hot temperatures beamed down on the city’s packed Cinco de Mayo celebration.
The roller-coaster spring will continue this week, only without the cold temperatures that swept across the Front Range and Eastern Plains last week.
Temperatures are expected to be in the 60s and 70s leading up to Colorado’s annual “safe planting” date, Mother’s Day on May 11, according to the National Weather Service in Boulder.
The average date for the last freeze is May 5, but freezes have occurred as late as June 8, according to the Weather Service.
The mountains today could see temperatures in the 50s, but snowfall in the mountain is possible at mid-week, with a slight chance of show in the city, according to the Weather Service office in Boulder.
Thunderstorms are possible much of the week, with a chance of severe weather in northeast Colorado Monday afternoon and evening, according to the Weather Service.
The same system could drop snow on the foothills, forecasters warn, but the system should give way to higher temperatures again on Thursday and through the weekend, according to the outlook.
The 30-day forecast calls for a return to normal precipitation. May is the Front Range’s wettest month, with about 2.3 inches of rainfall about every three days, according to the Weather Service.
The metro region has baked the past two months — with the third-driest March on record and the fifth-driest April, according to the Weather Service.
The average daily temperature for May is 70.5 degrees, with average lows at 43.8 degrees.
May also is the beginning of Colorado’s severe-weather season for thunderstorms, lightning, large hail and tornadoes when moisture from the Gulf of Mexico meets frigid air from Canada or the Pacific Northwest.
May normally has at least six heavy thunderstorms in Colorado, but last year there were 17, according to the Weather Service.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
