Climate
The Dinosaur National Monument sits on a vast area of desert land in Northwestern Colorado and Northeastern Utah. Typical of "high deserts", summer temperatures can be exceedingly hot, while winter temperatures can be very cold. Snowfall is common, but the snow melts rapidly in the arid and sunny climates of these states. Rainfall is very low, and the evaporation rate classifies the area as desert, even though the rainfall just barely exceeds 10 inches.
| Climate data for Dinosaur National Monument | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °F (°C) | 33.0 (0.6) |
39.0 (3.9) |
50.4 (10.2) |
60.8 (16.0) |
71.9 (22.2) |
83.2 (28.4) |
90.5 (32.5) |
87.9 (31.1) |
77.7 (25.4) |
63.6 (17.6) |
45.7 (7.6) |
34.2 (1.2) |
61.5 (16.4) |
| Average low °F (°C) | 10.8 (−11.8) |
15.2 (−9.3) |
25.0 (−3.9) |
31.8 (−0.1) |
40.5 (4.7) |
48.9 (9.4) |
56.6 (13.7) |
54.7 (12.6) |
45.5 (7.5) |
34.9 (1.6) |
23.3 (−4.8) |
12.7 (−10.7) |
33.3 (0.7) |
| Precipitation inches (mm) | 0.64 (16.3) |
0.56 (14.2) |
0.88 (22.4) |
1.17 (29.7) |
1.30 (33) |
1.06 (26.9) |
1.01 (25.7) |
0.89 (22.6) |
1.24 (31.5) |
1.46 (37.1) |
0.80 (20.3) |
0.62 (15.7) |
11.64 (295.7) |
| Snowfall inches (cm) | 9.2 (23.4) |
6.6 (16.8) |
5.9 (15) |
3.5 (8.9) |
0.7 (1.8) |
0.2 (0.5) |
0.0 (0) |
0.0 (0) |
0.2 (0.5) |
1.6 (4.1) |
4.7 (11.9) |
8.3 (21.1) |
41.1 (104.4) |
| Source: http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/climsmco.html | |||||||||||||
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