Colorado Springs Pavement Climate Data

Last reviewed 2026-07-25. Journalists, researchers, and community groups are welcome to cite any figure on this page with attribution and a link.

This page gathers the figures behind the advice on this site, with the arithmetic shown. Temperature, snow and precipitation come from NOAA's 1991-2020 climate normals, read directly from the National Centers for Environmental Information data service for three stations: Colorado Springs Municipal Airport, Monument and Fountain. Road and plowing figures come from the City of Colorado Springs and El Paso County, and hail history from the National Weather Service office in Pueblo and local reporting.

NOAA publishes several of its normals in tenths, so a raw value of 1571 is 157.1 days. A freeze-thaw day here means a day on which the low reaches 32 degrees or colder but the high does not stay at or below 32, which is the annual count of freezing nights minus the count of days that never thaw. Monthly, seasonal and annual normals are separate series, and they do not always add up exactly.

Freeze-thaw arithmetic at the airport

Colorado Springs Municipal Airport, station USW00093037, sits at 1,884 meters, about 6,180 feet. Its normals count 157.1 nights a year at or below 32 degrees and 22.4 days when the high stays at or below 32. The difference, 134.7 days, is the freeze-thaw count used on this site, rounded to 135. Seasonal fields give the split; spring is the remainder once the other seasons are subtracted, since summer has no freezing nights.

Raw NOAA fields: ANN-TMIN-AVGNDS-LSTH032 1571, ANN-TMAX-AVGNDS-LSTH032 224, DJF-TMIN 858, DJF-TMAX 167, SON-TMIN 333, SON-TMAX 30, ANN-TMIN-AVGNDS-LSTH020 645, ANN-TMIN-AVGNDS-LSTH000 48.

The warm-night window for sealer

SealMaster's instructions call for a minimum of 50 degrees and rising for at least 24 hours and say not to apply sealer when the temperature is expected to drop below 50 within that time. The monthly normals show how rarely that holds at this altitude. Only July and August average fewer than three nights at or below 50, and they are also the two wettest months. June and September work on warm stretches; April, May and October rarely do.

NOAA 1991-2020 monthly normals for USW00093037: MLY-TMIN-NORMAL, MLY-TMAX-NORMAL, MLY-TMIN-AVGNDS-LSTH050, MLY-PRCP-AVGNDS-GE010HI and MLY-PRCP-NORMAL.

Three stations, three climates

El Paso County spans more than one climate. The Monument station on the Palmer Divide records nearly three times the airport's snowfall, with its snowiest season in spring at 47.8 inches from March through May, and about 150 freeze-thaw days a year from 177.2 freezing nights and 27.1 days that stay frozen. The Fountain station, lower and farther south, records about two-thirds of the airport's snow, and gets 10.26 of its 18.82 inches of precipitation in June through August.

NOAA publishes no temperature normals for the Fountain station, so no freeze-thaw count is given for it.

Who clears which road, and with what

Plowing policy decides how long packed snow and deicer sit at the end of a driveway. The city sends its fleet to arterials and collectors first and reaches residential streets only after 6 inches of snow; El Paso County treats its residential Priority Three roads on the same threshold. KRDO reported in January 2026 that the county pre-treats with salt brine, a roughly 25 percent salt solution, and has since 2019, while the city does not use brine.

Hail on the record

Colorado's hail season runs from mid-April to mid-September by the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association's count, and KOAA notes that it tends to peak in June and July. The storms below are the ones most often cited for the Colorado Springs area. Their effects on pavement are mostly indirect, through roofing traffic and runoff, which the hail post on this site's blog covers.

• June 13, 2018: 3-inch hail over the southern Colorado Springs metro area in the early morning, per NWS Pueblo
• August 6, 2018: 2.75-inch hail confirmed at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, 2.5-inch in Fountain and 4-inch reported in Security; 14 people hurt and about 21,000 auto claims, per KOAA
• 2023: more than 17,000 re-roofing permits in the Pikes Peak region, up 179 percent from 2022, per KKTV

Sources & Methodology

Every figure above was taken from the primary sources below (accessed 2026-07-25). Where a number is derived (arithmetic on published figures) or covers a broader period or area, the text says so.

1. NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 annual and seasonal normals, Colorado Springs Municipal Airport (USW00093037) — Freeze and thaw day counts (1571 and 224 tenths), seasonal splits, snowfall 377 tenths (37.7 in), precipitation 16.54 in, freeze dates 05/05 and 10/04, 152-day season, elevation 1884.0 m.
2. NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, Colorado Springs Municipal Airport — Monthly normal lows and highs, nights at or below 50F, days with 0.10 in or more of precipitation and monthly precipitation for April through October.
3. NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals, Monument (USC00055734) — Snowfall 1121 tenths (112.1 in), spring snow 47.8 in, 177.2 freezing nights, 27.1 ice days, 47.1 days with 1 in of snow, elevation 2158.0 m.
4. NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals, Fountain (USC00053063) — Snowfall 24.9 in, precipitation 18.82 in, June to August precipitation 10.26 in, 5.9 days with 1 in of snow, elevation 1694.7 m.
5. City of Colorado Springs, Snow Plow Information — 5,833 lane miles over 194 square miles, plowing priorities, the 6-inch residential threshold and deicing materials.
6. El Paso County Public Works, Snow and Ice Control Program — Priority One, Two and Three road mileage and the 6-inch threshold for Priority Three roads.
7. KRDO, salt brine pre-treatment in El Paso County (January 23, 2026) — County brine use since 2019, the roughly 25 percent salt mixture, and the city's non-use of brine.
8. National Weather Service Pueblo, 2018 summer hailstorms — June 13 and August 6, 2018 hail sizes over southern Colorado Springs.
9. KKTV, re-roofing permits after the 2023 hailstorms (April 9, 2024) — More than 17,000 re-roofing permits in 2023 and the 179 percent rise from 2022.