Winter not everyone鈥檚 favorite
Remember those beautiful mild, sunny days of November? The colors hung on our trees later than normal and we had plenty of nice fall days to get outside for a hike, bike ride or some fall yard cleanup.
By Thanksgiving the nice weather was over and December quickly jumped into a winter pattern with a snowstorm on the first day of the month that brought snow and cold weather. That pattern has persisted through most of the month. Another major snowstorm blanketed the area on Dec. 17, with accumulations ranging from five to 20 inches across Southwestern Pennsylvania. We ended up with 14 inches at our home in Chalk Hill and the month鈥檚 total of 29 inches before the Christmas snow.
With all the snow and rain in December, the most noticeable weather element has been the lack of sunshine. Day after day of gloomy, dreary, cloudy days persisted and made the misery index near the level for depression. December is normally our most cloudy month with average sunshine just 28% of possible. This begins to improve as we head into January with possible sunshine at 32% and by March we are at 43%.
December is also the darkest month of the year. Sunrise on the 21st was at 7:41 a.m., and sunset at 4:57 p.m.. By the end of January, sunrise is at 7:30 a.m. and sunset at 5:37 p.m. The worst is already over, and in a week or so you will begin to notice a few minutes of extra daylight and spirits begin to lift. Also, the storms of January move a bit quicker than December so that we experience a bit of sunshine after the storm instead of a week of cloudy, dreary weather.
Our coldest days usually happen in January. Uniontown experienced its record for cold on Jan. 22, 1994, when the thermometer hit -22 degrees. In the mountains, Elliotsvville had a reading of -34 degrees. Smethport, in McKean County, hit the all time Pennsylvania low of -42 degrees on Jan. 5, 1904. That record has stood for 116 years.
The Uniontown area averages just three days with temperatures below zero and occasionally no below zero weather is recorded. Our worst winter was 1977 when the average temperature for the entire month of January was 12 degrees. We saw many nights below zero and even one day when it did not get above zero. The average January temperature is 32 degrees so we were 20 degrees below normal.
Looking ahead, and in spite of the cold and snowy start, the months of January, February and March are forecast to see temperatures and precipitation to be normal or a bit above the averages. Normal temperatures are a high of 40 and a low of 20; and remember that on any given day the temperature can be 20 degrees higher or lower the normal and the extremes can be 40 degrees higher or lower than the average.
Wishes for a warm and sunny year