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November 2, 2009

October ends wet; November brings snow risk

The data are in, and no matter how wet and cool you remember October 2009, while it did end very wet, the temperatures averaged out to an almost precisely normal 55.3 degrees for Baltimore.

BWI temperatures Oct. 2009Rainfall for the month totaled 6.24 inches. That's a surplus of more than 3 inches, and the wettest October since 2005, when Tropical Storm Tammy's remnants drove the total to 9.23 inches.

And if you still feel like it was a cold October in Baltimore, it's probably the first half of the month that's stuck in your weather memory. Fourteen of the first 20 days of the month averaged cooler than the norm. 

The month's low was 34 degrees, on the 20th. The high was 83, on the 9th.

The coldest spell was from Oct. 14 through the 20th, a seemingly endless string of chilly, rainy days with temperatures averaging close to 10 degrees below the seasonal norms. Daytime highs stalled in the 40s to 50 degrees for four days straight. More than 3 inches of rain fell at BWI-NOAA BWI rainfall Oct. 2009Marshall in those same four days.

But we also enjoyed 12 October days of 70-plus temperatures, including one day in the 80s. Seventeen days were rated clear or partly cloudy.

And now November...

Average high temperatures for Baltimore in November slide from 61 degrees on the 1st to 51 degrees on the 30th. The average lows dip from 38 degrees to 31 degrees. The records run from 86 degrees (on the 1st in 1950), to 12 degrees (on the 30th in 1929).

Snow becomes a serious possibility in November for the first time. Many Baltimoreans will NOAA BWO November tempsremember the Veteran's Day storm on Nov. 11, 1987, which left an official 6 inches at BWI, but caused much more disruption than the number would suggest.

The deepest November snowfall on record for the city is 8.4 inches, which fell on Nov. 30, 1967. Measurable snow has fallen here on all but eight dates in November.

The oldest weather record still standing for Baltimore in November seems to be the 1.79 inches of rain that fell on Nov. 23, 1879, still the record for that date. Also notable is the cold stretch from Nov. 19-24, 1880, when the maximum daily temperatures stalled near 30 degrees. Four of those high readings are still record low maximums for the dates.  

Posted by Frank Roylance at 11:13 AM | | Comments (0)
Categories: By the numbers
        

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About Frank Roylance
Frank Roylance is a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. He came to Baltimore from New Bedford, Mass. in 1980 to join the old Evening Sun. He moved to the morning Sun when the papers merged in 1992, and has spent most of his time since covering science, including astronomy and the weather. One of The Baltimore Sun's first online Web logs, the Weather Blog debuted in October 2004. In June 2006 Frank also began writing comments on local weather and stargazing for The Baltimore Sun's print Weather Page. Frank also answers readers’ weather queries for the newspaper and the blog. Frank Roylance retired in October 2011. Maryland Weather is now being updated by members of The Baltimore Sun staff
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