FORT COLLINS, Colo. — The hottest temperature ever recorded in the state of Colorado was once considered to be 118 degrees in Bennett which supposedly happened on July 11, 1888. It was even entered into the official NOAA database as late as 2003.
The Wikipedia page for Bennett cites that database and falsely claims that Bennett is known for having the highest temperature ever recorded in the state of Colorado. However, the hyperlink redirects to another page that does not list that temperature as Colorado's record.
"We have lots of great weather data and records from the 1880s but unfortunately many of those measurements are just inaccurate," said assistant state climatologist Becky Bollinger.
She said that the methods of taking weather measurements prior to 1900 were not as careful as they are today. The tools they used to measure the weather back then were also not as advanced and accurate as modern technologies, and she also said that extreme weather measurements were not carefully verified by independent experts like weather records are today.
"More recent investigations have suggested that there may have been a temperature exposure issue with that Bennett record," said Bollinger.
She said that the thermometer was most likely exposed to direct solar radiation. Official measurements are taken in the shade or in a covered box to make sure the measurement is of the air temperature only.
The Bennett temperature record has been called into question several times over the last few decades including a paper written in 1985 by Thomas Bettge, a research scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The article was published in the April 1985 issue of Weatherwise magazine, a publication run by the American Meteorological Society.
Another article published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in March of 2013 listed several erroneous weather records, including the Bennett heat record, and called for a better focus on reevaluating and verifying weather records in general.
"It's not that difficult to figure out that that 1888 temperature record was false," said Bollinger. "It was a hot July day, but there were no other temperatures around the state that would suggest that Bennett could have been 118 degrees.”
She said the temperature in downtown Denver on that day in 1888 maxed out at just 100 degrees. It’s nearly impossible that the temperature was 18 degrees hotter just 30 miles east in Bennett. She said there were also several other temperatures around the Denver area that were only in the low 100s.
“We also know that our very typical hotspots across the state would be Lamar, La Junta, Las Animas – any of those small towns that follow along the Arkansas River Valley.”
She said it would even be more plausible if it was a town along the South Platte River Valley or the Grand Valley on the Western Slope, but not a high elevated town like Bennett which lies on the outer rim of the Denver metro area and the northern slope of the Palmer Divide.
Bollinger said if it was 118 degrees in Bennett, it would likely have been even hotter in southeast Colorado, but that was also not the case.
The actual official Colorado heat record is from that area in the Arkansas River Valley. It hit 115 degrees at John Martin Reservoir in Bent County in July of 2019.
A temperature that Bollinger helped verify with meteorologists from the National Weather Service and NOAA. To make sure that record will stand the test of time.
But she said even that record could be short-lived. Climate change increases the likelihood of more extreme temperatures.
“So, I would suspect that that is a record that will stay for a little bit, but I also suspect that that is a temperature that will be beaten at some point.”
So far the hottest temperature in Colorado this summer – 103 degrees in Baca County near Campo.
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