Lisa Hidalgo and Ryan Warner were ready to bust out the rain boots for their September weather and climate chat.

Denver7’s chief meteorologist and the Colorado Public Radio host delved into a rare, days-long rainy stretch, our first taste of winter and the pair’s official first-snow-date prediction for Denver.

‘Welly weather’

“Two things happened this week that rarely happen in Colorado,” Warner said. “The first is that when I went to bed it was raining. I woke up and it was raining. And two, the rain meant I could wear my ‘Wellies,’ my Wellington boots.”

“These are rare events,” the green-rubber-boot-clad Warner quipped during the conversation.

Warner and Hidalgo held their conversation on the heels of an unusually rainy spell. In Colorado, rain storms often come and go quickly. This week’s rainfall, though, came during a slow-moving storm.

“It’s more the direction of it and where it camps out,” Hidalgo explained. “So as you get a low pressure system rolling through the state, and we get all this moisture that wraps around the back side of it, it jams up against the foothills. It’s called an upslope flow.”

In the winter, such a storm would’ve meant inches of snow in Denver. With September highs in the 50s, though, it came down as rain in town as it snowed in the high country.

First taste of winter

The National Weather Service in Boulder estimated Tuesday that “a widespread 5-10 inches” of snow fell at the highest elevations – above 10,500 to 11,000 feet – during the September 22-23 storm.

Hidalgo noted things would quickly warm up after what was the area’s first winter weather advisory of the season.

“But this is just a hint of what’s to come,” she said. “And, obviously, we’re going to see a lot more alerts as we get into fall and into winter.”

When will Denver see its first measurable snow?

On average, the first snowfall in Denver happens on Oct. 18. The window has already passed for our earliest first snow, which happened on Sept. 3. The latest first snow in Denver is Dec. 10 – Lisa’s birthday.

With all of that in consideration, Hidalgo predicted this year’s first snow in Denver would fall on Oct. 24.

Warner’s guess? A potentially soggy evening of trick-or-treating after an Oct. 29 first snow.

More weather in-depth

Lisa and Ryan touched on studies on potential connections between both lightning and snowmelt on Colorado’s year-round fire season. They also discussed a study that suggests the eastern half of Colorado is drying out faster than the western half.

For more in-depth weather analysis, watch their full weather and climate chat in the video player below:

From a tiny tree frog to an enormous elephant, every one of the nearly 3,000 animals at the Denver Zoo are treated for their health issues on site. Many of the animals at the zoo aren’t just doing tricks, they’re helping zookeepers by participating in their own healthcare.

Saturday morning at Park Hill’s Hiawatha Davis Recreation Center, the City of Denver held a community open house to talk about its next big project: the city park and open space that was formerly the Park Hill Golf Course.

“It’s quite rare for a city to have this large of a park coming in. So it’s really important to us that that process is driven by the community,” said Sarah Showalter, director of planning and policy at the city’s Department of Community Planning and Development.

Residents got to see the plans for the park and the future the city has in store for the surrounding neighborhood.

“The voters clearly said that 155 acres should be a park, but the community is still looking for access to food and to affordable housing,” said Jolon Clark, executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation.

It seemed to be a good turnout, which the city likes, but two groups that appeared to be underrepresented were Black and Latino people, which is a problem, since Park Hill is a historically Black neighborhood.

Helen Bradshaw is a lifelong Park Hill resident. She and Vincent Owens, another long-time resident, came to the open house and said the problem is simple: the city isn’t meeting the neighbors of color where they are.

“The people who are just the average go to work, they might be at work or they have to work today or, you know, they couldn’t get a babysitter or something like that,” Owens said. “A lot of the elders on my block, they’re not going to come to something like this. So, you need to canvass and actually go get the voice of opinion, or they don’t know about it.”

Bradshaw and Owens say they want a neighborhood park and space for the neighbors by the neighbors. They also want a grocery store and opportunities for people who were part of the neighborhood long before it became a gem for development.

The city says that’s what they want as well, and that’s why they want everyone in Park Hill to give their input until the project is done.

“People can go to ParkHillPark.org and they can fully get involved and find out what the next engagement is, how to provide their input, you know, through an email, through a survey,” said Clark.