DENVER — Fresh off the heels of Denver's wettest month in nearly a decade, the city is now off to its rainiest start to a June in nearly 60 years.
With 2.03 inches of rain since June 1 (through Thursday), Denver International Airport, the city's official climatological site, is at its wettest start to June since 1965. It's also Denver's sixth-wettest opening eight days of June on record.
For context, in an average full month of June, Denver averages 1.94 inches. Through the first eight days of June, Denver's already picked up more rain than the city typically sees over the course of the full month.
That follows one of Denver's wettest months in recent memory, with 5.53 inches of rain in May ranking as the city's 11th-wettest month in recorded history (weather records in Denver date back to 1872). All-in-all, Denver's picked up over 10 inches of precipitation since Jan. 1, about double the year-to-date average.
And the rain isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Showers moved through parts of the Denver area again on Friday afternoon, with more widespread rainfall likely on Saturday. Sunday looks like it could be an especially soggy day, with storms continuing for both Monday and Tuesday as well.
The prolonged rainy stretch is likely due to a couple of factors, but the main one is persistent southeasterly flow out of the Gulf of Mexico, which continues to bring tropical moisture into Colorado.
The stagnant weather pattern could have ties to a powerful typhoon last month over the Pacific Ocean, and also to our transition from a La Niña to an El Niño in the central Pacific.
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