The average temperature during the first 15 days of this month was 3.6 degrees. That was the coldest start to December since 2000. It also was the 10th coldest such stretch since temperature records start in 1881.
The first half of December 2000 had an average temperature of 2.9 degrees and finished with an overall average temperature of -0.2 degrees which is currently ranked as the 3rd coldest December on record. One remarkable element to that frigid December 2000 is that although ranked as 3rd coldest on record, not a single record low was set that month. Another cold December that some of you may recall occurred back in 1983. The average temperature that month was -0.3 degrees which was the 2nd coldest December on record.
Much of the cold that year arrived in the second half of the month as the first 15 days averaged 8 degrees above zero which was followed by one of the most brutal December cold snaps on record to finish the month