A warm or a white Thanksgiving Day?

 

A November day in suburban Washington, D.C.

Some may wonder why Thanksgiving falls on a different date every year. Federal law proclaimed it a national holiday to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. That means this Thanksgiving will occur on November 27 when DC’s average high/low temperatures are 54°/38°.   

DC’s warmest Thanksgiving occurred on November 22, 2007, with a record high temperature of 77°. By comparison, Washingtonians had an unusually cold Thanksgiving in 2018 when the high/low was only 42°/29° on November 22. Thanksgiving Day occurred on November 28 last year and featured a near average high/low of 57°/45°.  It was also DC’s rainiest Thanksgiving in decades with 0.35” of rain.

Longtime Washingtonians may recall that it was 36 years ago when area residents last experienced a snowy Thanksgiving. That Thanksgiving, on November 23, 1989, was particularly frigid with a high/low of only 35°/27°.  To add to that, a two-day snow total of 3.5” occurred on November 22-23, 1989. November 1989 finished 2.0° colder than average and was followed by DC’s coldest December since 1917. In fact, 1989 remains the only time Washingtonians had both a white Thanksgiving and a white Christmas.

Accumulating November snowfall in the nation’s capital has been exceedingly rare in recent decades, with only one such occurrence since 2000. Daily snowfall records were set at all three D.C. metropolitan area airports on November 15, 2018. However, when NOAA updated its climate averages to reflect the 30-year period of 1991-2020, replacing the 1981-2010 data set, DC’s November snowfall average dropped from 0.5” to 0.1”.

Unlike last November that finished as DC’s warmest on record, this November has featured more seasonal temperatures over the first third of the month. The fall’s dry weather across the DMV (DC, Maryland and Virginia) has continued into this month with no more rainfall expected the rest of the week. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center expects warmer than average temperatures with the potential for above average rainfall for the second half of November.

Washington, D.C.’s five coldest Thanksgiving’s by high temperature (Source: NOAA)

1.  30°: November 27, 1930
2.  33°: November 28, 1901
     33°: November 26, 1903
3.  35°: November 23, 1989
     35°: November 28, 1996

Washington, D.C.’s five warmest Thanksgiving’s by high temperature (Source: NOAA)

1.  77°: November 22, 2007
2.  75°: November 22, 1979
     75°: November 20, 1941
3.  75°: November 30, 1933
     73°: November 24, 1927