Welcome to December. If you are of a certain age you mostly likely feel like I do: Each month goes faster than the previous one and upon receiving my new yearly calendar from various organizations I think, and didn’t I just get this?

When you are 5, a month is 1/60th of your life and a year 20 percent. By the time you reach 50 a month is a tiny 1/600th of your life and a year a mere 2 percent of what you have already experienced. Maybe this is why the months go so fast.

I’ll continue on the morose side today for a bit. December is dark and has the least amount of possible daylight to the year. Our sunrises get a bit later every day this month starting just before 7 a.m. and ending up at 7:14 a.m. by New Year’s Eve.

However, there is good news in the light department. The time of sunset actually is at its earliest on the 9th of the month. The reason this doesn’t coincide with the winter solstice on the 21st is because of the shape of the Earth, its orbit around and sun and where we sit in the time zone. By the time we get to New Year’s Eve, the sun will be setting about 10 minutes later than it did three weeks earlier.

On average high temperatures continue to fall this month from the low to mid-40s to the low to mid-30s. At night 20s and teens become more common. The ground tends to freeze up this month for the winter. You can still plant bulbs, by the way, if you can get into the ground.

I can’t yet tell you if we will have a white Christmas, but the odds favor it. The map below gives the average number of times at least an inch of snow is on the ground Christmas morning. In Portland and along the coast there is often an inch or more of snow on the ground. Inland areas almost always have a white Christmas. It would be unusual to not have snow cover at the end of the month.

December Preview
November was a cold and snowy month as compared to average. Temperatures were over a half degree below average and the 10.2 inches of snow in Portland was well above seasonal norms. It doesn’t, however, touch 1921 when over 2 feet of snow fell in Maine’s largest city.

Many places away from the coast and up north saw much more snow. Bangor recorded its snowiest November on record with nearly 26 inches of snow, a lot for any month of any winter.

The atmosphere will likely take somewhat of a break this month. I don’t think it’s going to be beach weather, but on average New England will be closer to what you’d expect for December or even a bit milder.

One of the long-range models has the entire country warmer than normal. This same model did the same thing for November and we know how reliable a forecast that turned out. However, there are other signs of a more typical December without as many arctic outbreaks.

This week’s weather
The next few days feature more roller-coaster-like temperatures. Today is warm, Tuesday is cold and Wednesday is mild again. I don’t see any major snowstorms this week, although there will likely be some snow or ice late tomorrow night as the cold air departs and the mild air returns for Wednesday. The Wednesday morning commute will be a bit tricky, especially away from the coast.

The two maps below show how quickly the cold departs between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Right now, snowfall appears limited to northern New England as the GFS map of total snow through the 9th indicates. This map isn’t useful for when the snow falls, but it does give an idea of how much new snow might fall in the next 7 to 9 days. The small amount you see in Portland and surrounding areas is what falls Tuesday night.

The average amount of snow for this month ranges from under a foot along coastal York County to just over a foot in Portland and much of southern interior Maine. Most years either have a lot of snow or very little. The average is made up of the extremes we experience here in New England.

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