National Park Service

Climate Monitoring in the Northern Colorado Plateau Network: Annual Report 2008 National Park Service

This report documents the 2008 monthly and annual climate summaries and climatic extremes for weather stations located within park units of the Northern Colorado Plateau Inventory and Monitor-ing Network (NCPN) and three stations located near park boundaries. In 2008, mean annual maxi-mum and minimum temperatures tended to be below average throughout much of the NCPN region, while snowfall was notably above long-term averages. Diff erences between long-term means and this year?s measures of average minimum and maximum temperature and total precipitation (and snow-fall) were not related to the elevation gradient of stations. A general increase over the past 25?50 years in the 4-year composite, moving mean for mean annual minimum temperature is evident for most of the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer (Coop) stations in the NCPN. Conversely, there is evidence for a declining trend in snowfall over the past 20?25 years. Historical records for NCPN Coop stations indicate that annual precipitation has been highly variable, and that a strong unidirec-tional trend over the observation periods (18?81 years) is not readily evident.