December wrap-up; looking ahead to January

The month of December and the year 2024 is in the books as the calendar page flips over to a new year and the month of January.

In Rochester, December finished with an average temperature of 24.0° which was 3.2° above the thirty year climatological average of 20.8°. The month finished as the twenty-fifth warmest December on record and was 7.8° colder than December 2023 which was the warmest on record. The warmest temperature was 54° which occurred on December 7th. The coldest temperature was -7° on the morning of December 12th.

The month finished with 1.27″ of precipitation which was 0.01″ below average. Snowfall was 6.8″ which was 5.6″ below-average. December is typically the snowiest month of the winter season.

The year 2024 finished with a mean average temperature of 48.6″ which was the third warmest year on record behind 1931 (49.8°) and 2012 (50.2°). The year finished with 36.75″ of precipitation which was 2.08″ above average and the wettest year since 2019.

Looking ahead to January, the average high and low temperatures continue to drop until around the middle of the month before steadily rising. The average high goes from 24° on January 1st to 22° on January 15th to 23° by the end of the month whereas the average low temperature will go from 9° at the beginning to 7° by the end.

January also averages around 0.99″ of precipitation and 12.2″ of snow making it the second snowiest month of the season.

The month will gain approximately fifty-three minutes of daylight hours from beginning to end.