December 2019 is the 12th warmest December in Clinton weather records to 1879.
Clinton area weather observer Jim Blaess says the overall temperature was 33.6 degrees which is 7.1 degrees above the normal of 26.5.
The highest reading was 62 degrees on Christmas Day. Blaess says that’s the warmest Christmas Day in the records. The old record was 56 on December 25th 1982.
There were no days with zero or below temperatures according to the weather observer. The normal in December is 3 days.
Blaess reported .85 of an inch of precipitation which is about an inch below the normal of 1.82. Snow in December totaled 2.3 inches which Blaess says is below the normal of 8.7 inches of snow.
For the snow season to date – from October thru January – Blaess says there’s been 10.9 inches of snow which is near the normal of 10.4 inches.
Blaess says 2019 will be the 3rd wettest year in the Clinton weather records to the late 1870’s
He says there was 50.48 inches of precipitation which was more than 16 inches above the normal of 34.25 inches over the 12 months.
The weather observer pointed out that 3 of the top 10 years with the most precipitation have now occurred since 2015.
Blaess pointed out the 5th wettest year on record is 2015 with 49.29 inches of precipitation. Plus 2018 is the 10th wettest is 2018 with 47.22 inches of precipitation.
For January, Blaess says you can expect 1.45 inches of precipitation with 9.4 inches of snow. Temperatures remain stable during the month. Blaess say the average high on January 1st in 30 and average low is 15 and those are 32 and 15 at the end of the month.
Blaess recalled last year January was O-K during the first half of the month but then the turned cold and snowy in the last half. He says in the last half of January 2019 there was 21.5 inches of snow. Low temperature records were set or tied in the last half of January 2019 according to Blaess. He pointed out that on January 30 last year the wind-chill dropped to 53 below zero with a high of 12 below zero. He says that was the coldest daytime high in January record. On the 31st it dropped to 29 below zero and that was the coldest temperature in a January and tied the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded. That was set on February 3, 1996.
