Novembers summary.

2008-12-07 17:46:08.000 – Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist

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November is a month that most Americans give thanks. Thanks for family, thanks for food, thanks for life, etc. On the summit, it was a month to give thanks to some of the weather that we experienced and hope for what might come. Once again it is the first two weeks of the month which means it is time for me to do the monthly check for the previous month which in turn shows us how we are standing in terms of monthly and annual totals and how they compare to our history. And it is something I enjoy doing because every check is different. Some checks bring surprises to be thankful for while others bring disappointment which dig into the optimism of the staff for the winter season. But good or bad, it becomes part of our history and who we are.

If you are an avid weather fan who looks over our F-6’s on a daily basis, these facts were posted yesterday and might be yesterday’s news to you. But for the casual visitor, if you haven’t seen this information, this is all new to you. So here is what I found:

Our average temperature for the month was 18.8F which is 1.8 degrees below normal. We had a high of 48 on the 15th which was also a new daily record high for the day. We had a low of 11 below on the 23rd which was not a record but we did set a new daily record low on the 20th with a low of 8 below.

In terms of precipitation, we received 10.15 inches which was just shy of average at 0.34 inches below normal. In a twenty four hour period, the greatest amount we received 3.61 inches on the 25th. The date was also the greatest amount of snowfall we received at 14.2 inches. This day combined with the rest of the month to provide us with 44.3 inches which was 3.5 inches above normal. This brings the seasonal total to 55.0 inches which is only two inches shy of normal, an amount that can still easily be made up.

For winds, our average was only a meager 34.3 mph which was 6.2 mph below normal for the month. But we finally reached a gust over 100 mph with the highest being at 110 mph from the southeast on the 25th. This ended a seven month streak of not having any gusts of 100 mph or more, a fairly long stretch for the summit but not the longest experienced in our 76+ years. As for hurricane force winds, there were 8 days of gusts of 73 mph or more, 3 of which were over 100 mph.

As for our weather, we only received 25 percent of the possible sunshine that could have shown. We only had 2 clear days, 2 partly cloudy days with the remaining 26 days filed under mostly cloudy. We had 30 days (or the entire month) with at least some fog during each 24 hour period. We had nine days with rain and twenty days with snow.

So overall, November could be summarized as being colder, drier (barely), snowier, and less windy than normal but very foggy and cloudy. The 25th brought a storm that set the biggest snow, precipitation, and winds for the month, but nothing record shattering. It will be remembered for breaking two records, one high and one low. It brought our first 100 mph gusts of the season along with a staff that was thankful to be up here to experience it all. I can’t wait to see how December pans out, can you?

Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist