From high to low, county temps vary 129 degrees

RBC I It’s hot! It’s freezing! It’s humid!
It was quite a diverse year in Rio Blanco County. The temperature from the year’s coldest to the year’s warmest, as recorded from Jan. 1 to the end of October, spanned 129 degrees.
The most notably cold day of the year came on Jan. 14, with a low of minus-34 degrees reported by the National Weather Service, utilizing the instruments at Meeker Airport, the only certified NWS weather station in Rio Blanco County.
That same day also recorded a high temperature of 0, the only day of the year when the high temperature wasn’t at least 10 degrees above 0, and those 10-degree days were recorded on surrounding days, Jan. 13 and Jan. 15, when the lows were minus-8 and minus-9, respectively.
Jan. 14 also recorded the lowest average temperature for one day in 2013 through the end of October, with a median temperature of minus-17.
The hottest day of the year, according to the National Weather Service, fell on June 25, when the mercury rose to 95 degrees. With a low of 48 degrees the same day, the mean temperature for that day was 72 degrees, which was not the highest average recorded for the year.
That honor goes to July 17 and July 22, when the average temperature each day was 75 degrees. On July 17, the high was 90 with a low of 59 with a mean of 74.5. On July 22, the high was 93 and the low was 56, also with the actual mean of 74.5, which the NWS rounded off to the upper temperature.
The warmest average month of the year was July. That month had an average daily mean of 70 degrees, the halfway point between the month’s average highs and lows.
That was an average of 2.9 degrees above normal on a daily basis with the monthly high being 94 degrees on July 21 and the lowest temperature of the month recorded at 46 degrees on July 3.
The coldest average month of the year was January, which had an average daily mean of only 9.7 degrees, the halfway point between the month’s average highs and lows.
The 9.7-degree average was 10.4 degrees below normal for the average January on a daily basis. The highest temperature for January came on Jan. 24 with 42 degrees while the minus-34 degrees was the month’s and the year’s low through the end of October.
A month-by-month synopsis of the average highs, average lows, average monthly temperatures and the average monthly temperatures’ departure from normal:
January: Average high was 24.8 degrees, average low was minus-5.5, average monthly temperature 9.7 degrees, and it was an average of 10 degrees colder than normal.
February: Average high was 33.6 degrees, average low was 5 degrees, average monthly temperature was 19.3 degrees, and it was an average of 5.6 degrees colder than normal.
March: Average high was 47.8 degrees, average low was 20.5 degrees, average monthly temperature was 34.1 degrees, and it was an average of 1 degree colder than normal.
April: Average high was 52.6 degrees, average low was 25.3 degrees, average monthly temperature was 38.9 degrees, and it was on average of 3.4 degrees cooler than normal.
May: Average high was 67.5 degrees, average low was 36.4 degrees, average monthly temperature was 52 degrees, and it was an average of .5 degrees warmer than normal.
June: Average high was 83.7 degrees, average low was 43 degrees, average monthly temperature was 63.4 degrees, and it was an average of 2.6 degrees warmer than normal.
July: Average high for the month was 87.1 degrees, average low was 52.9 degrees, average monthly temperature was 70 degrees, and it was an average of 2.9 degrees warmer than normal.
August: Average high for the month was 82.9, average low was 50.4, average monthly temperature was 66.7 degrees, and that was .7 degrees warmer than usual.
September: Average high for the month was 73.5 degrees, average low was 45.9 degrees, average monthly temperature was 59.7 degrees, and that was 3 degrees above normal.
October: Average high for the month was 55.8 degrees, average low was 28.9 degrees, the average monthly temperature was 49 degrees and 3.7 degrees below normal.
January, February, March and October had average temperatures below normal while April, May, June and July had temperatures above normal.