Good morning and welcome to December! 31 days this month and at least one of them will bring us our first snowfall accumulation of the winter season! That could begin as early as Sunday with a mixed bag of weather expected. Temperatures will teeter around the freezing mark, making accumulating snow a little tough to forecast. There is another chance coming next week (and probably the week after that).
In the Quad Cities, we usually see around 9.3 inches of snowfall in the month of December. And all it really takes is one big snowstorm to get us to that normal value.
Here’s the week-by-week average:
- First Week of December: 1.4 inches of snow
- Second Week of December: 1.9 inches of snow
- Third Week of December: 2.6 inches of snow
- Fourth Week of December: 3.4 inches of snow
But have you ever wondered why we get more snow in December? The big reason is the temperature values. On December 1st, our average high temperature is 40 degrees. If a weather system arrives when temperatures are 40 degrees, its going to bring us rain. However, due to shorter days and longer nights, the average high drops to 34 degrees by the middle of the month. By New Year’s Eve, our average high is only 31 degrees.
So, get those snowblowers primed up and enjoy your clean car. The days of snowy and slushy weather are only a few weeks ahead of us!
-Meteorologist Eric Sorensen
