It took only a small stretch of the meteorological imagination to say that Tuesday’s weather in Washington showed several significant trappings of winter. It was two days after the solstice. Skies were gray. A bit of rain fell. It felt chilly. And there were even a few snowflakes.
Snow in Washington may always be worth attention, even if Tuesday’s was so sparse and meager that few may have seen any of it.
But there it was. In the climate summary issued in late afternoon by the National Weather Service for the day through 4 p.m. On the line where the amount of the day’s snowfall is entered, the letter T appears. The T stands for trace, an amount too small to be measured.
But it was not “zero.”
A forecaster at the Baltimore-Washington office of the weather service confirmed the observation. Connor Belak said the office issued a notice describing a “rain-snow mix.” He gave the time as 9:07 a.m.
It was obviously not the sort of thing that could create a white Christmas, or allow the construction of snowmen or snowwomen, or be fashioned into projectiles to be flung on Christmas Eve by the mischievous at top-hatted passersby.
But, it was a mix. Raindrops mixing with snow flakes. Two days after the solstice, two days before Christmas. The flakes exist in the annals of the weather service. even if few residents of the capital saw a single one.
On what is sometimes known as Christmas Eve Eve, it was another distinction for the final days of 2025.
The rain was scanty, too, but was sufficient to measure. It amounted to .03 inches. Not much, but perhaps enough to call for activation of windshield wipers on the cars of commuters.
The afternoon’s high was 43 degrees, 4 below the normal high for Dec. 23 in Washington. The morning’s low was 38, 5 degrees above normal. It showed, at least by early evening, that winter in Washington may be chilly and gray, but it is not necessarily freezing.
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