It was the eve of solstice weekend in the capital on Friday, and on this significant date, this meteorological milestone, it was wet, windy and fairly warm, although not necessarily all at once.
And it was severely deficient in daylight, offering less than nine hours and a half, as astronomy requires of December days in the District that are so closely solstice adjacent.
But despite Friday’s proximity to winter, several December days in Washington have already showed closer similarities to winter in terms of temperature. So Friday seemed to give little cause for complaint, even to the winter averse.
Until late afternoon, the mercury remained in the 50s in the District on Friday. Just before 2 p.m. it read 57 degrees. It’s a reading that seemed more than comfortable only two days before Sunday’s solstice and the generally acknowledged start of winter.
The normal high on Dec. 19 in the District is 48 degrees, so Friday seemed decidedly and pleasurably warmer.
it could almost have been declared a balmy day, but such a designation might seem to ignore the wind, and especially the gusts, of 30 and 40 mph. They gave a sensation of turbulence, of instability suggesting that the moderate temperatures might lack staying power.
At least not through the dark hours after sunset.
As of 5 p.m., the peak wind had reached 30 mph, and the peak gust had touched 43 mph. Wind and gust both came from the west, the source of much of Washington’s weather, the direction from which weather fronts arrived.
Tree branches bobbed, almost in harmony with the rise and fall of a wind-generated throbbing in the ears. When the low sun could be glimpsed, when it was not obscured by the day’s clouds, it seemed to linger behind treetops.
Silhouetted against the occasional brightness of the sun, the treetops swayed to the staccato rhythms of the rising and falling gusts. Sometimes experiencing a momentary lull, they soon resumed furious motion.
Friday morning’s moisture helped give the day its distinction. Some rain fell invisibly, in the darkness before the dawn. But most of it, almost a third of an inch, in Washington at least, came down between 8 and 9 a.m.
It seemed likely that it became part of the weather experience of many on their way to school or work on the last Friday before winter.
The official rainfall total was .48 of an inch, just short of half an inch, and probably notable in an area that has been more characterized this year by paucity of precipitation rather than any surfeit.
In such a manner, with wind, water and warmth, on the final Friday before Sunday’s solstice, with a meager nine hours and 26 minutes of often gray daylight, did Washington draw near to the commonly agreed upon start of the season called winter.
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