Colorado history

Monday, November 2, 2026

November 2 has buried Denver under two feet of snow, heated it to 83 degrees, and invited the dead over for a drink and a marigold.

Denver’s 1946 snowstorm starts with 14 inches on November 2 and then the sky refuses to stop

1946 · Denver / Stapleton

After a 62° high on the 1st, November 2 brings 14.3 inches of snow downtown. The storm continues into the 5th, dumping 30.4 inches in the city and 31 at the airport over three days.

It began the way a lot of Denver winters begin: with the weather deciding it had been too polite. On November 1 the high was 62. By the morning of the 2nd the sky had changed its mind. Fourteen point three inches fell that day alone downtown. The next two days added more. When it finally quit around 3 a.m. on the 5th, downtown had 30.4 inches and Stapleton had 31. The continuous precipitation lasted 70 hours and 46 minutes—the second-longest such stretch on the books at the time.

Schools closed. Streetcars and buses struggled. Cars were abandoned for days. Secondary roads in the country stayed blocked for two or three weeks. A few buildings sagged under the weight. Football was canceled. Livestock losses ran high on the eastern plains. The storm by itself dropped more precipitation downtown (2.03 inches) than the entire previous record for any November. A newspaper carrier still made his rounds on a bicycle that was mostly a sled. Denver has had bigger snows, but this one started on a date that usually still has a few leaves left.

The city eventually dug out. The date kept the memory. November 2 has never quite recovered its reputation as a gentle autumn day.

Sources: Thornton Weather / NWS history · Extreme Weather Watch · Denver Post historic snowstorms

Denver’s public Día de los Muertos celebrations step out of private kitchens in 1983

1983 · Denver (Northside / Pirate Gallery)

Artist Patricio Cordova and collaborators at Pirate Gallery, KUVO, and the Chicano Humanities & Arts Council turn a largely private family observance into one of the city’s first big public Day of the Dead events.

November 2 is All Souls’ Day, and in Mexican tradition it is the day the dead are most expected to visit. Colorado has had Mexican and Indigenous communities observing versions of the holiday for generations—long before statehood, when the southern part of what is now the state was still part of Mexico. For a long time in Denver those observances stayed mostly inside homes: private altars, marigolds, pan de muerto, and the quiet work of remembering.

In 1983 that changed in public. Patricio Cordova, who had stumbled into a celebration in Puebla years earlier, teamed with Pirate Gallery, KUVO Jazz, and the Chicano Humanities & Arts Council. They put altars in a gallery, explained the marigolds and the sugar skulls, and invited the neighborhood. Early years were awkward; death is not a subject most Anglo Denverites were used to celebrating. Cordova later said it was like pulling teeth. Children were curious. Adults were unsure. The processions and the ofrendas kept happening anyway.

Pirate’s annual show became a Northside tradition. Other neighborhoods, parks, and museums followed. History Colorado now hosts community altars. The holiday is no longer a secret. The dead still get the marigolds. Denver just learned to leave the door open.

Sources: Denverite · Westword on Pirate Gallery · Colorado Community Media / North Denver roots

November 2 holds Denver’s hottest November day ever (83° in 2025) and a pair of 1° lows

2025 · Denver

The date’s all-time high is 83°F, set in 2025 and breaking the previous November monthly record. It has also dropped to 1°F twice (1951 and 1991) and put 14.3 inches of snow on the ground in 1946.

Denver’s November 2 has never settled on a personality. In 2025 the high reached 83°F at DIA, the warmest temperature ever recorded in the city during any November. The previous monthly high had been 81° on the 27th in 2017; the old daily record for the 2nd was 78. People walked around in short sleeves while the calendar still said autumn. First snow was still nowhere in sight.

The same date has also been brutal. The record low is 1°F, tied in 1951 and 1991. The record low maximum is 19°F, also in 1991, during a storm that finished the job started at the end of October. And of course there is the 1946 snow—14.3 inches on the day itself, part of the larger dump. Most years the high sits in the upper 50s and the low near 30. The date has proven it can do almost anything else.

Scott Walker was born in Colorado Springs on this date in 1967 before the family moved east. The thermometer, however, has always been the more reliable local celebrity. It does not campaign. It just shows up and breaks something.

Sources: Extreme Weather Watch · Denverite on 2025 record · Denver Post