Is the weather in Boulder actually as extreme as college football fans think?
When rumors first began swirling about Deion Sanders leaving Jackson State to take the job of head football coach at the University of Colorado in late November, many people shot down this notion strictly on the basis of Boulder being “too cold” or “too snowy”. Now, even after taking the job, there is still a large contingent who believes that Coach Prime will have difficulty attracting recruits (particularly those from the south) to Boulder because of its alleged extreme weather. If you look at just about any thread on social media about Colorado football, there is almost always at least one person who manages to bring up the weather. Generally, most people picture mountains and snow when they think of Colorado, in the same way that most people picture desert when they think of Arizona, beaches when they think of Florida, etc. Although those of us who live in Boulder will be quick to tell you how mild the weather actually is and LOVE dropping the “300 days of sunshine a year” line, these discussions have made me wonder whether there is actually any truth to these ideas about our climate or if those of us in Colorado are just so accustomed that it has become the norm.
Being a data scientist, I decided to analyze a dataset documenting the weather in Boulder every single day from January 2010 to August 2022. Unfortunately, this dataset lacked precipitation data which threw a major wrench in my ability to analyze claims about Boulder being “too snowy” and my ability to test if the “300 days of sunshine a year” line was actually true. However, I was still able to gain plenty of insight from the data that was available, which included daily mean temperatures, minimum and maximum daily temperatures, as well as data about wind, visibility, and pressure.
Unsurprising to anyone who lives in Boulder, my analysis showed that the weather in Boulder is, in fact, generally mild. I found that the mean daily temperature over this 12 year period was 52.8 degrees, with a mean maximum daily temperature of 65.9º and a mean minimum daily temperature of 41.9º. Something I did find surprising in the data was the fact that out of the 4615 days recorded, there were more days where the maximum temperature exceeded 80º (1378) than days where the minimum temperature was below 32º (1184). In another blow to the idea that Boulder is an arctic hellhole, there were only 111 days (~2% of the total days recorded) where the temperature minimum was in the single digits, and only 29 days where the temperature ever dipped below 0º. In addition, the mean wind speed from this dataset is about 6.4 knots, or 7.3 miles per hour, which leaves little room for wind chill to skew the data and make it seem colder than it actually is.
While Boulder may not be Miami or Los Angeles in terms of climate, there is very little evidence to support the common misconception that Boulder is perpetually cold and snowy. Based on the data and my analysis, I think it is safe to say that the weather in Colorado is not nearly as extreme as many people, especially college football fans on the internet, seem to think it is. Even Coach Prime himself, who notably once turned down a scholarship offer from Georgia on account of it being too cold, has publicly stated Colorado “ain’t even that cold” and how he loves the weather. Although some write this off as a mere recruiting pitch or in some cases a “straight up lie”, this is coming from a man who wore sweatshirts in 65º weather and had never seen snow before moving here, so you have to give him some credibility. Although cold is relative to many people, the idea that Boulder is too cold to attract recruits has fallen flat on it’s face as Coach Prime has already amassed one of the top recruiting classes in the country; including 5 star CB Cormani McClain, a Florida native. All in all, 9 of the Buffs 19 commits from the 2023 class come from the south. Colorado may be cold, but clearly not cold enough to scare off recruits.
