It will be bitterly cold for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday as temperatures dip well below average for this time of year in the D.C. area.
The weather forecast calls for a chance of snow Sunday followed by gusty winds and high temperatures only around 20 degrees.
“We’re going to have dangerously cold temperatures with low wind chills,” said Brian LaSorsa, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
By late morning, temperatures will likely be going from the teens to the low to middle 20s for the actual air temperature.
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The hundreds of thousands of people in town for the inauguration will feel strong wind blowing almost constantly throughout the day.
“We’re looking at winds about 15 to 20 miles per hour with gusts 25 to 30 miles per hour,” LaSorsa said. “When you combine that with the very cold air temperatures, that’s what’s going to cause the dangerously low wind chill values.”
The wind chill will be in the single digits to lower teens.
“It’s going to be very, very cold,” LaSorsa said. “Our average high for what it’s worth is in the upper 30s, so we’ll be well below average for this time of year.”
If the forecast holds, the inauguration would be by far the coldest since former President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985, when the swearing-in ceremony had to be held indoors and the parade was canceled.
The temperature at noon that day was just 7 degrees, with wind chills dipping between -10 to -20.
In his inaugural address, Reagan even mentioned the weather.
“We stand again at the steps of this symbol of our democracy — well, we would have been standing at the steps if it hadn’t gotten so cold,” Reagan said. “Now we’re standing inside this symbol of our democracy.”
Former President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration was also extremely cold, at 22 degrees with several inches of snow on the ground.
It was 42 degrees for President Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration. In 2017, for Trump’s first inauguration, it was 48 degrees.
Former President Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration was 45 degrees, and it was down to 28 degrees for Obama’s 2009 inauguration.
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