We’ve closed the door on November and with it out goes meteorological autumn. December 1st marks the beginning of what is known as “meteorological winter” – the climatologically coldest 3-month stretch of the year.
As we look ahead to the month of December, seasonal temperatures continue their downard trend as colder and colder air builds over the Northern Hemisphere. We won’t hit the nadir of the seasonal drop until the second half of January…followed only by a sloooow recovery through the month of February.
Average daytime highs to start December are in the upper 40s to near 50F – 48.9F at Hyannis – and average nighttime lows are in the 30s – 33.3F at Hyannis. On average, we lose a solid 7-8F degrees off of those temperatures over the course of the next 31 days. By New Year’s Eve, those values stand at 42F and 26F respectively.
Precipitation in December is typically on its annual upswing, with an “average” month yielding 4.68″ of rain and melted-snow.
From a daylight perspective, we have just about bottomed out on the earliest evening sunsets. Today’s sunset is at 4:12PM. We lose another 1 to 2 minutes between now and December 8th (sunset at 4:10PM) and then begin the long climb in the reverse direction. At month’s end, the sunset is at 4:20PM. Astronomical winter / the winter solstice / is December 21st. On the 21st, the sunrise is at 7:04AM and the sunset is at 4:13PM, yielding just 9 hours and 9 minutes of daylight…the least amount of the year.