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Colorado Springs, CO UV Index Today

Modelled for · GMT-6

What is the UV index in Colorado Springs right now?

3.3 Moderate

EPA suggests shade around midday, a hat and sunglasses.

Today's peak is 8.1 (Very High) at about 1pm local time.

When is UV strongest in Colorado Springs today?

UV in Colorado Springs peaks at 8.1 (Very High) around 1pm local time (GMT-6). It stays at 6 or above — the high band — for 3 hours, roughly 12pm to 3pm. UV is 3 or above for 7 hours.

Local time, midnight to midnight. Bar colour is the EPA UV band, never restyled.

Colorado Springs today, in numbers

Latitude
38.8°N — 66 of 121 from the north
Today's peak
8.1 (Very High) — 26 of 121 nationally
Peak arrives
1pm local (GMT-6)
At or above 6
3 hours, 12pm to 3pm
At or above 3
7 hours, 10am to 5pm

The window from 12pm to 3pm is the practical answer for Colorado Springs today. Nationally today the spread runs 11.4 in Hilo (20°N) to 1.3 in Fargo (47°N). Why latitude and the clock decide this →

Six Thousand Feet Of Missing Atmosphere

Elevation is the dominant term in the numbers here. Colorado Springs stands at 6,035 feet, or 1,839 meters, and the commonly cited rule of 8 to 10 percent more ultraviolet per 1,000 meters puts the surface roughly 15 to 18 percent above a sea-level city at the same latitude on the same date, because the beam crosses less atmosphere before it lands.

The clean comparison is St. Louis, at 38.63°N against this city’s 38.83°N. Two tenths of a degree apart, the sun reaches almost exactly the same noon height in both on any given day of the year. What separates the two readings is 5,500 feet of air, not geometry.

Cloud offsets less of that gain than it would farther east, because of when the cloud shows up. Front Range storms in summer are built by terrain rather than delivered by a front. The Pikes Peak massif immediately west of town forces air upward, thunderstorms grow over the high ground through the afternoon, and they grow more readily once July and August monsoon moisture reaches this far north. A Front Range summer morning is usually clear, and the morning is the half of the day the sun spends climbing toward its highest point.

Nearest metros we model

UV changes with latitude, not with a city boundary, so a neighbour a hundred miles north reads differently for a reason.

Denver, CO 64 mi · 39.7°N peak 8.2 Boulder, CO 85 mi · 40.0°N peak 7.6 Fort Collins, CO 122 mi · 40.6°N peak 7.3

What does Colorado Springs’s UV index mean today?

3.3 is Moderate. EPA suggests shade around midday, a hat and sunglasses. Today Colorado Springs also reaches Very High at its peak — a different band from the one it is in right now, which is why the hour matters as much as the day.

The scale is open-ended: 11 is where the named bands stop, not the maximum. All five bands, with the EPA guidance for each →

Modelled, not measured

The UV figures for Colorado Springs are computed by the Copernicus atmosphere model, not read off an instrument here — unlike the AQI on our air-quality pages, which comes from a regulatory monitor. Cloud is where a UV model is weakest. What that means in practice →

Questions about UV in Colorado Springs

What is the UV index in Colorado Springs today?

3.3 right now (Moderate), peaking at 8.1 around 1pm local time. UV stays at 6 or above for 3 hours, from about 12pm to 3pm. This is a modelled value, not a ground measurement.

When is UV strongest in Colorado Springs today?

Around 1pm local time (GMT-6), not at noon — solar noon drifts across a timezone and daylight saving moves it later on the clock.

Is this measured or modelled?

Modelled. The figures come from the Copernicus atmosphere model via Open-Meteo, unlike the AQI on our air-quality pages, which is read from an EPA regulatory monitor. Cloud cover is where a UV model is weakest.

Colorado Springs air qualityThe AQI, from a regulatory monitor rather than a model UV across the USWhere Colorado Springs sits against every metro we track

Updated