A day after Denver set a new record-high temperature for September, it’s expected to do it again.
The National Weather Service is calling for a chart-topping 100 degrees in the Mile High City, the first time a three-digit temperature has ever been recorded here on this date since records have been kept and the deepest into the calendar year by more than two weeks.
“Finding your way to higher altitudes will certainly get you to the coolest temperatures in the state,” mused Jim Kalina, a meteorologist with the NWS in Boulder. “Copper Mountain is expected to be only 76 degrees for a high.”
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Even though mountain-town residents such as those in Kremmling are already waking up to chilly near-freezing temps — it was 36 degrees there overnight — the Front Range is still cooking, making for what’s to be the hottest Labor Day on record.
Denver’s expected high today tops the 98-degree September record set on Sunday, which broke the previous record of 97 degrees set in 1995. The average high for Sept. 2 is about 84 degrees.
The previous high for the date, 95 degrees back in 1983, was broken just before noon when the temperature at Denver International Airport hit 96 degrees, Kalina said. If it hits 100 degrees, it will be the latest in a calendar year to reach a three-digit temperature. That record stands on Aug. 16, 2002, which topped out at 100 degrees.
It almost makes one pine for Sept. 3, 1961, the day before Labor Day, when Denver residents watched 4.2 inches of snow hit the ground and as much as a foot of snow in the suburbs.
