Winter is Here... sort of.

November is done and December is here. Although the "official" start of winter occurs later in the month on the solstice, the real winter tends to start now. After all the next three weeks have shorter days than the last week of January on through spring. December tends to be our coldest month round these parts as well. So, winter is here, sort of. Temps have been seasonally chilly lately and so winter feels like it is ready for action. Let's take a peek at November's stats.

November was a pretty average month, rainfall was plentiful as should be in November but a tad short of my average for the month. No measurable snowfall was observed at my location. Temps were also pretty standard fare for November with the exception of a rather toasty day early in the month. On the 4th I recorded a 66.3° mark and a few stations in the area tickled 70° which is rather warm for the 11th month. The warmest temp was that 66.3° mark one of five days that breeched the 60 degree barrier. The coolest was a seasonally crisp 29.1° on the morning of the 8th, one three days under the freezing mark. The coolest afternoon high came on the 21st when the merc barely topped 40 degrees with a 40.5° reading. The warmest overnight temp arrived on the 4th with a summerish 59.5° bottom. November delivered 18 rainy days and just a pair of sunny ones. The wettest day was a 0.91 inch event on the 19th. The whole month saw 5.73 inches of rain. 7 days had more than 1/4 inch. 14 days failed to reach 50° but every day managed to get above 40° so it was a pretty unspectacular month overall.

December started off with nice sunshine and crisp but not cold temps and a bit of an east wind to add some bite to the air. The last month of 2020, will it go out with a wimper or a roar?

Soak it up my friends, soak it up. 

Autumn in Full Swing

 

Autumn made its full entrance in October offering us a few Indian summer days along with our first general freeze over the area. It was a rather typical October in a very atypical and crazy year this 2020 has proven to be.

Temps rode the roller coaster but had a steady trend down all month long. That is just October round these parts. The warmest day was the 2nd of the month when I registered a 79.1° mark one of four days in the mid to upper 70s. Some other areas around the metro area recorded low eighties on the 2nd and 3rd. The coldest temp was a chilly 28.9° morning on the 26th one of two consecutive mornings in the 20s. On the 25th the temp struggled to get to the mid 40s topping out with an afternoon high of just 46.3° at my house. The evening of the 4th was very summer like with a low of a balmy 58.4°. 

Overall the month of October delivered 7 days with temps in the 70s all in the first half of the month, 21 days managed to break into the 60s and every day except one made it up to at least 50°. There were three sub freezing mornings all of which occurred in the second half of the month, eight days dipped into 30s. Nearly half the month however saw overnight lows in the summerish 50s.

October proved to be well below average for rainfall producing a mere 1.84 inches in my rain bucket. That is well below the typical four plus for October. The wettest day was the 10th when a solid 0.71 inch fell but that was one of only two days all month that could produce more than a quarter inch. I'm down 9 inches for the calendar year but the next two months are traditionally the wettest of the year so the potential for a "normal" rainfall year, at least calendar year, is still there but unlikely.

This is the time of year people start wondering about winter and what that might look like. Well, using the once every 5 years we get a "big one" snow event, we are due. The last time I recorded more than a foot of snow at my house was during the 2015-16 winter season when 14.30 inches fell. That was five years ago. The following year produced 10.95 inches of snow and there was a large event in February that year. More telling that we are due for a big event is the fact that I haven't seen a really big snow event since 2008 when we had that giant Christmas event dumping more than a foot and a half in December, the 2008-09 season was my snowiest at this location with 28.75 inches. I can't combine any two seasons since to top that total. We are due for a big snow event, so just keep that in mind.

Soak it up my friends, soak it up :)