WASHINGTON — Washingtonians have experienced some memorable weather this fall season. With the unofficial end to autumn occurring this week, it's a good time to reflect upon some of the weather highlights in the nation's capital.
Meteorologists have a different benchmark for measuring seasons than the standard astronomical calendar most people are familiar with. They break up the four seasons into equal, three-month segments. For example, “meteorological fall” began on September 1 and comes to a close on Thursday, November 30.
Meteorological winter officially gets underway on December 1 and continues through the end of February. Since fall concludes this week, we can reflect upon the D.C. area weather headlines of the last three months.
November 2023 will finish with near-average temperatures and slightly below-average rainfall. However, the month had several memorable stretches of warmer and cooler-than-average temperatures. While six days saw high temperatures in the 70s, this month will finish with six consecutive cooler-than-average days.
D.C.’s low of 24 degrees on November 29 was the coldest temperature in the nation’s capital since early February. Although D.C.’s wettest day in more than a year occurred on November 21, moderate to severe drought conditions have expanded across the D.C. Metro area over the course of the month.
There were seven unusually warm days with highs in the 80s last month. Although six of the final seven days of October saw highs of 78 degrees or warmer, D.C.’s cooler-than-average Halloween with a high of only 55 degrees (9 degrees below average) kept October 2023 from finishing among D.C.’s 10 warmest on record.
October 2023 finished tied with 2016 as D.C.’s 13th warmest. With only 0.65” of October rainfall at National Airport, it also finished as DC’s driest since 2000.
September 2023 finished as a warmer and drier than average month in the nation’s capital. Its average temperature was a full degree above average, largely due to the record-setting heat early in the month with six consecutive days in the 90s. September was also slightly drier than average despite beneficial rainfall from the remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia.
The 2023 fall season will finish with warmer-than-average temperatures in the nation’s capital. That’s largely due to how warm September and October were. It has also been a drier-than-average fall with September, October, and November each having finished with below-average rainfall in Washington, D.C.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center expects December to get off to a quiet start with near-average temperatures and some isolated showers. The winter weather outlook from the WUSA9 weather team is for this winter to be DC’s first snowier-than-average winter in five years.