Colorado Experiences Rare Weathergami Combination

From frigid, snow-covered mountaintops to hot deserts and dry plains, Colorado's range of climates vastly differs throughout the state. It can be bitterly cold, snowing inches of snow in one area of Colorado, while bright and sunny elsewhere in the Centennial State. Even the weather in one particular place can change within an hour.

On January 9, Colorado experienced a rare weather event known as a Weathergami.

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A Weathergami is the occurrence of a unique daily high and low-temperature combination for a location. When a unique ("has never happened before") high-low temperature combination occurs, that is a "Weathergami".

In Colorado, this happened when the temperature reached a high of 43 degrees and a low of -2 degrees at Denver International Airport. The negative temperature was recorded at 3:47 a.m. on January 9.

This was considered a Weathergami because it was the first and only time that a combination of the daily high/low temperatures in Denver's climate history has ever occurred. Meteorologists have been tracking these statistics back to 1872.

Another example of a Weathergami in Colorado was on December 21, 2022, when temperatures of 51 degrees and -10 were recorded on the same day in the Denver region. On January 25, 1872, it was documented that Denver's temperatures dipped from 46 degrees down to -20 during 24 hours.

Weathergami charts were inspired by the sports world's concept of scorigami, in which scores that have never happened before are analyzed. Weathergami was created as a new way to examine the climate of different locations. These charts depict the occurrence frequencies of all combinations of daily maximum and minimum temperatures observed at a particular location. Weathergami charts look different depending on the weather trends in a given place.

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Weathergami charts can also give a sense of how the climate is changing over time. Tracking this information can be vital for understanding and sustaining Colorado's changing climate.