A couple walked their bikes down the pedestrian mall of Pearl Street Monday afternoon. Two high school friends sat on a bench enjoying cups of ice cream. A woman in short sleeves walked by grasping a glass of cold vanilla soda. It was a different scene in Boulder than just a few Mondays ago. It felt and looked like June, and was helping to erase the recent memory of the coldest May in Colorado in 24 years, when the average temperature was 51.6 degrees, 5.5 degrees lower than the May average.
Boulderites were eager to enjoy the sunny skies and high temperature of 77 degrees on Monday.
Juliana Riegel, 35, watched as her three children played in fountains near the Boulder County Courthouse. During the recent chilly stretch, she entertained her young ones by going to museums and libraries around the Boulder and Denver area. Now that the sun is back, she is regularly taking her children to Pearl Street to watch street performers and find playgrounds.
“(They) are definitely happier and I’m happier too,” Riegel laughed. “Happy kids, happy mom.”
Evan Direnzo, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said the season has been “decently cold,” the seventh coldest in fact in 147 years in the state.
“We just basically sat under troughs and we didn’t get a lot of warming that we would normally get,” Direnzo said.
Nineteen-year-old Edden Rosenberg spent Monday busking as she played acoustic guitar alongside her friend, 16-year-old Leah Kirby. The two have been street performing for more than a year and while they remember their “fingers freezing” at times, the weather never dampened their spirits.
“Music definitely helps us get through it,” Rosenberg said. “People always come up and talk to us … it’s really fun.”
Business chugged along for others, too, including Longmont resident Mike Horowitz who has been selling hot dogs and other snacks under a colorful umbrella on Pearl Street for the past 22 years.
“I like talking to people,” Horowitz said after serving a friend a soda. It’s what keeps him outside and selling, saying that the cooler weather didn’t halt business “at all.”
One Boulder visitor is used to much warmer weather back at her home in Mexico City. Jaquia Corner, who came to the foothills to take part in the Ironman Triathlon Sunday, said she wished Sunday’s high would have been a little warmer than 63.
But she enjoyed Monday’s warmer weather downtown.
“It’s very quiet and calm,” Corner said, laying on her back under the shade of a tree near the Bandshell.
Before the full heat of summer arrives, the forecasts will continue to include thunderstorms. Hail and tornadoes also could be possible as June 21, the first day of summer, nears, Direnzo said.
