Goodbye to a cloudy, mild December; January 2024 opens with above-normal temperatures
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December didn’t feel like the first month of meteorological winter, with temperatures that were more than eight degrees warmer than average and meager snowfall.
Sunday’s 0.9″ of snowfall was the biggest of December and just the second measurable snowfall of the month. The 1.2″ of snow measured at O’Hare in December is still less than what fell at Chicago’s official reporting station in November and for the season the city is well below average.
WGN Weekly Climate Report: Today we’re saying goodbye to what’s been a really cloudy, mild and nearly snow-free December. As of this morning, we were tied for 3rd place for least snowy December on record. It wouldn’t take all that much today to knock us out of the top 5 least snowy.
It was our second warmest Christmas on records that go back to the 1870s and it was our warmest ever Christmas morning of 50 degrees.
December was quite cloudy—only about 30% of possible sun for the month. December is typically our cloudiest month of the year—usually we see at least 41% of possible sunshine. January, November & February are the next in line for “most cloudy”, with January and November with 42% of possible sunshine and February on average only about 47% of possible sunshine.
January usually is our snowiest month with about 11″ of snow on average. The least snowfall we’ve gotten in January was 0.2″ back in 1928 and the most was a whopping 42.5″ in 1918.
The first month of the year in Chicago is one of our coldest months. The average high temperature drops to 31 degrees from the 13th to the almost the end of the month. Our average low temperature starts at 21 degrees on the 1st and drops down to an average low of 18 degrees on the 16th for the rest of the month.
The good news on this side of Winter Solstice is that our days get longer. We’ll get 47 extra minutes of daylight this coming month. Our sunset by the end of January will be a few minutes after 5 p.m.
Nothing really for ice cover on the Great Lakes—lake water temperature along the Chicago shoreline remains right around 40. And our snow across the lower 48 is pretty dismal for winter weather lovers.
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