Today in New York Weather History: Christmas Eve (December 24)

  

 

1912 (Tuesday)

A morning snowstorm dumped 11.4", Christmas Eve's biggest snowfall on record.  Snow fell heaviest between 4-9 AM, when it fell at a rate of 1.5" per hour.

 

1961 (Sunday)

The biggest snowfall of the winter began after dark on the 23rd and continued off and on, occasionally mixing with sleet overnight,  then becoming more steady in the PM hours today, lasting until midnight.  All told, 6.2" of snow accumulated.  Temperatures ranged between the upper-20s and mid-30s. 

 

1966 (Saturday)

Snow and sleet began falling around noon and by the time it ended in the wee hours of Christmas morning, 7.1" had piled up (6.7" fell today).  There were two heavy periods of snow, one between noon and 3 PM, the second between 6-9 PM.  Temperatures were quite cold, with a high/low of 26°/22°.  More than a foot of snow fell in eastern PA, western NJ, and the Hudson Valley in NY State.

 

 

1975 (Saturday)

A high of 23°/low of 16° made this the coldest day of the entire year, 13 degrees colder than average.

 

1980 (Wednesday)

An inch of snow fell during the afternoon, triggered by the arrival of an Arctic air mass.  The temperature dropped from 37° in the morning to 20° by midnight (and would bottom out at -1° by sunrise on Christmas morning).

 

1983 (Saturday)

After Arctic air moved in yesterday, today's temperature fell throughout the day, and by midnight it was a bone-chilling +6°, a record for the date.  Just under an inch of snow fell, delivering somewhat of a white Christmas.  This was quite a contrast to springlike temperatures experienced a year earlier at Christmas time.

 

 

1984 (Monday)

Today was the last of fifteen mild days in a row, a stretch in which temperatures were 11 degrees above average.

 

1985 (Tuesday)

Today's high of 55° was the mildest reading of the month.

 

1989 (Sunday)

This morning's low of 9° made it the third day in a row that dawned with a low in the single digits (it was 6° yesterday, and 8° two days ago).

 

 

1990 (Monday)

High temperatures over the past four days: 59° on 12/21; 61° on 12/22; 66° on 12/23; and 63° today.   These highs were 20 degrees above average.  Today's high was reached before sunrise then fell all day and was at 29° by midnight.  This was the seventh day this year to have a swing in temperature of 33 degrees or more - the most of any year on record (through 2023). 

 

1996 (Tuesday)

Today's high was a very mild, and un-Christmas-like, 63°, tying the record for the date - and more typical of holiday temperatures in Atlanta. 

 

1998 (Thursday)

Two inches of snow fell before daybreak, the first snowfall of the winter.  With a high of 32°/low of 23°, this was only the second colder-than-average day of a very mild December .

 

 

 

1999 (Friday)

Today's high of 30°, ten degrees colder than average, was the first high temperature of 32° or colder this winter.

 

2001 (Monday)

Today's 0.51" of rain was the last precipitation of the year, the driest year since 1970.  The year's total of 35.56" was 14 inches below average.  The past three months had only 4.26" of rain, one-third the normal amount. 

 

2003 (Wednesday)

It was a rainy Christmas Eve as 1.42" fell during the daylight hours (5 AM-6 PM), a record for the date.  The day's mean temperature of 51° was the mildest of the month (high of 56°/low of 46°).

 

2013 (Tuesday)

For the second day in a row temperatures fell throughout the day.  After falling from 64° to 42° yesterday, today's temperature fell from  42° to 26°.  It was also windy (gusts to 30 mph), so temperatures in the afternoon and evening felt like they were in the low and mid-teens.

 

2014 (Wednesday)

It was a rainy day (0.80" fell), the fifth gloomy day in a row.  The mild high of 58° was reached at 9 PM.

 

2015 (Thursday)

It was an extraordinarily mild day, with a record high of 72°, which followed a record-warm low of 63° (the warmest low temperature ever recorded in December.)  This low temperature was the same as the previous record high for the date.  The day's mean temperature was 33 degrees above average.  These springlike conditions came just two years after a high/low of 71°/62° on Dec. 22.

 

 

2021 (Friday)

The first measurable snow of the winter fell between 3-4 AM, accumulating just 0.2".  This was the latest first measurable snowfall since the winter of 2015-16 (when it didn't happen until 1/17).  And it was the smallest first snowfall since the winter of 2014-15, when it was also 0.2" (but occurred a month earlier, on 11/26).   By contrast, last winter's first snowfall, on 12/16-17, amounted to 10.5".

 

2022 (Saturday)

Mostly clear skies and frigid temperatures.  The day’s high/low was just 15°/7°  (26 degrees below average), making this the coldest day of the year; the coldest high reading on Christmas Eve in 150 years; and the coldest low temperature since 1983.  This was also the first day this winter with high of 32° or colder, a week later than average.  The day's low was the coldest reading of the entire year; the coldest reading since Jan. 31, 2019 (2°); and the coldest reading in December since 1989 (6° on 12/23).  

 

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Comments

[Ken K. in NJ]

Hi Rob: Did you ever do a study of which days had an average temperature the most above normal? It seems to me this may have come up in a previous year with reference to 12/24/2015, but the comments are no longer there.

Thanks!

[Rob]

Hi Ken,
You're right - in the years since "departure from the norm" has been reported for each day (since the early 1950s), this is the most above average day. Very close behind are April 17, 2002 (high/low of 96°/72°, 32 degrees above average), March 10, 2016 (79°/63°, 31 above average), and Jan. 6, 2007 (72°/54°, 31 degrees above average).

[Henry]

The entire month of December 2015 easily shattered the record in every single eastern state for the warmest December, some states by 10 degrees warmer than the previous warmest December. December 2015 is easily the warmest December in the U.S. The other month last decade that was exceptionally warm was March 2012.

I remember visiting my sister in southern New Jersey for Christmas in 2015. The early hours of 12/24/15 in New Jersey made it one of the few days in December (if not the only day) in which the temp hit 70 degrees in the middle of the night! That day, my sister and I went for a rigorous run on a forest trail (we enjoy hiking). We both wore tank tops and shorts to be comfortable (the day was very humid too), and we were drenched in sweat at the end. That day was one of the best memories I have had about Christmas.