December 2002 Weather In Muskegon

After going through two months of below normal temperatures Muskegon's conditions bounced back and were + 2.2 degrees. This is warm but not as much so as the + 6.3 degrees of December 2001!

In keeping with the warm weather a new record was set on the 19th. The reading of 53° was the monthly high and broke the daily record high for the 19th which had been set in 1957. The monthly low temperature was 4° on the 3rd (that morning 'ye gads it's 13°!').

It was not an above average month for precipitation. Only .85 inches of rain fell, 1.79 inches below normal. The majority of this came on the 18th when .64 inches fell(wind.rain.pouring.heavy. Noisy on metal awnings). This lack of rain made it the 7th driest Muskegon December on record.

Nor was December 2002 good for snow lovers. A mere 2.5 inches of snow fell a prodigious 26.8 inches below normal! Nearly half of the snow came when an inch was received on the 2nd. That day I wrote, "snow becoming routine." How wrong was this! This was the 4th lowest snowfall for a December in Muskegon.

The average wind speed of 11.8 knots was above the December norm of 10.3. The windiest day was the 8th with an average of 19.1. December 1st had the calmest conditions with an average wind of 1.4 knots.

The warm December brought temps to a final average of + 1.78 degrees. Up until the last month 2002 had been warmer than 2001. However, as December 2001 was such a warm month, 2002 ended up .15 degrees cooler than 2001.