Historic Inauguration Day Weather

h/t history.com
h/t history.com

Every four years, the presidential election comes around and we have the Inauguration day. Because this is a relatively infrequent event, there is interest in the Historical weather on this day. Well, we now fall on the eve of the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States.

The National Weather Service in Washington DC has put together an excellent webpage with the climatology, and I wanted to share some of the data with you.

h/t giphy.com
h/t giphy.com

With it being January, the weather is about what you would expect for it being late January. The average high is 43°F, low of 28°F. Partly cloudy skies and light winds are the typical weather conditions seen. However, there have been some major anomalies over the years.

  • In 1909, the inauguration had to be held inside, as 10″ of snow fell
  • Ronald Reagan had the Warmest and Coldest inaugurations. In 1981, the temp was 55°F, and in 1985, the temp was 7°F
  • In 1825, John Quincy Adams took office, and took weather observations himself as well! The high was 47°F, and rain amounted to 0.79″
  • For JFK in 1961, 8″ of snow fell the night before and caused a major traffic jam heading into DC. Hundreds of cars were abandoned on roadways leading into the town

There is much more than that over on the climatology page, and it is a really interesting read. The forecast for tomorrow is fairly gloomy in DC for the inauguration day, with temperatures likely in the mid 40s and rainfall possible.

The forecast for Washington D.C. tomorrow. h/t NWS Washington D.C.
The forecast for Washington DC tomorrow. h/t NWS Washington DC