A cold, snowy December

Of course. A polar express bringing single digit lows and plenty of snow Christmas day made December another record month in a year of wild weather. Minimum low temperature records were set daily, Dec. 26-31, with 7.1 F the 26, 3.2 F, Dec 27 and 8.2 F the 28th. The 30.8 F on the 30th was the only day the high reached 30 F.

The high was 50.3 F Dec. 22 and only two prior days, including Christmas, had the high dipped into the 30s. Rain the morning of Dec. 25 in La Conner turned into snow that fell into the evening. There was snow the next three days, into Dec. 28.

Yes, it was cold. The months’ 29.6 F average daily low was almost 5 F below the century average and the average high of 40.2 F was 4.6 degree below average. These were the lowest daily average minimum and maximum temperatures this century.

Only one day of snow was measured in the 20 days of precipitation recorded at the Washington State University weather station in Mount Vernon and the recording was 0.11”, as liquid. But 0.85” inches of precipitation, 4.5 inches of snow, was recorded Dec. 25-28 by a volunteer weather recorder at Dewey Beach, northeast of Deception Pass.

Rain fell 10 days in a row, Dec. 4-13 with almost an inch of rain Dec. 9-11. The 0.5” on Dec. 18 was the heaviest single day of rain. Another 0.8” fell Dec. 21-25, with rain turning to snow by 10 a.m. in La Conner.

There are 20 years of data, with no records for 2002 or 2005.

Measurements and data are at Washington State University’s Mount Vernon weather station on Memorial Highway.