Colorado Springs

About Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs is located on the Colorado Front Range in El Paso County, and is the largest city by area in Colorado. The elevation in the city varies, with the average being 6,035 feet / 1,840 meters. It is the most populous city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since 2010. Colorado Springs is the second-most populous city in the state of Colorado, and the 40th-most populous city in the U.S.

The city lies in a semi-arid steppe region, with the Southern Rocky Mountains to the west, the Palmer Divide to the north, the high plains further east, and high desert lands to the south. Colorado Springs is 69 miles/111 km or at best, one hour and five minutes south of Denver by car using I-25. As noted above, it has the greatest total area of any municipality in Colorado. During the 2020 United States census, the city had a total area of 195.761 square miles (507.019 km2) including 0.362 square miles (0.937 km2) of water. On an interesting note, there are no springs anywhere in Colorado Springs! The city gets it’s name from the mineral springs located to the west of town in Manitou Springs.

Some of the attractions in or nearby Colorado Springs include Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods Park, the US Air Force Academy, hiking, biking, and over 55 regional attractions, including the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Colorado Springs has a cool, dry-winter monsoon influenced continental climate. The city has abundant sunshine year-round, averaging 243 sunny days per year, and receives approximately 16.5 inches (419 mm) of annual precipitation. It’s also one of the most active lightning strike areas in the U.S. This natural phenomenon led Nikola Tesla to select Colorado Springs as the preferred location to build his lab and study electricity.

December is typically the coldest month for Colorado Springs, averaging 30.8°F (−0.7°C). Unlike most areas in North America where January is the coldest month, in Colorado Springs, typically, there are 5.2 nights in December with sub-zero (-0°F/−18°C) lows and 24 days where the high does not rise above freezing. With all that noted, it’s lowest all time temperature ever seen happen on one cold December night (on December 9, 1919) and early morning when the low reached −27°F / −33°C). On the other end of the scale, it’s warmest 2 days both took place in June, on June 26, 2012 and then again on June 21, 2016, when the high on those days was 101°F / 38°C. The town see 32.5 inches / 84 centimeters of snow fall annually. The most snow to fall in a single season was 95.0 inches in 1898-1899. I should note, that the National Weather Service (NWS) reports, the 1956-57 season was particularly severe, with record-breaking amounts of snow, but no totals are given. Local reports for the city often cite the 1957 calendar year as having the highest total snow accumulation, of roughly 96 inches. That’s highly unlikely, as I’m a official weather observer/reporter myself for the NWS, and the NWS doesn’t report in such a matter. We go by “snow seasons”, which run from July 1 to June 30. In over words, and unlike other weather records, official snow records aren’t kept for any one year, they are kept by each snow season. Anyway, one last snow record to note is that the highest one-day snowfall in Colorado Springs occurred on January 15, 1987, with 22 inches of snow accumulating.