November 2020 ended up quite a bit different than November 2019 which was one of the coldest for our area. The month began with a record warm stretch but eventually had a few snow events. Overall, though, it was a very warm and fairly dry month which is just what we predicted. Here’s a quick and colorful rundown of our weather during November and how it relates to climatology.

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Top Weather Highlights of November 2020:

RECORD WARM STRETCH: The month of November began with a stretch of 70-degree days for the area. Boulder tied record highs on November 3rd and 4th, and came up just two degrees short on the 5th. The 79°F reached on the 4th was the second warmest November temperature ever in Boulder.

LIGHT SNOW HITS PARTS OF METRO:  One of two snow events in the Metro was forced by upslope on November 9th and 10th. 1-3″ of snow fell cross the western Metro area with 3-6″ in the Foothills.

GREEK LETTERS HIT NICARAGUA?  November is normally at the tail-end of Atlantic Hurricane season. However, 2020 has been far from normal in the Atlantic. Two major hurricanes made landfall within 15 miles of one another in the small Central American country of Nicaragua this month….less than 2 weeks apart. Category 4 Eta and then Category 5 Iota, both caused catastrophic damage, flooding, and landslides in the area. By the end of November, 2020 had eclipsed many of the records for Atlantic Basin tropical cyclones.

A SECOND SMALL SNOW EVENT: Model challenges with an incoming storm system led to some poor forecasts for a snow event which produced a swath of widespread heavy snowfall in the Metro area around sunrise on November 26th.  Our team saw this snow coming to some degree, so our forecast didn’t turn out too bad. However, some areas of northwest Denver received up to 8 or even 10″ of snow when they may have been expecting a measly inch!

RELATED POST:
In the face of La Niña, the rest of 2020 is shaping up to be warm and dry in Colorado

November 2020 Recap Graphics:

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Ben Castellani

Ben grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania and holds both a bachelor's and a master's degree in Meteorology, the latter being from CU Boulder. His hometown received nearly three feet of snow from the Storm of the Century back in March of 1993, sparking his initial interest in impactful weather. Ben currently works on remote sensing and data analysis software at L3Harris Technologies in Boulder.

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