DC: Dry Christmas?

Now

Cloudy, seasonably cool. Despite the impressiveness of west-of-the mountains radar echoes inspiring some model maligning in Comment-ville last night, the Washington metro area remains mostly cloudy, but dry, on this pre-holiday-weekend Friday. Temperatures have been very close to seasonable levels, in the low to mid 40s. Highs were: National 46°, Dulles 45°, BWI 43°.

A weak low-pressure area now off the Georgia/South Carolina coast will continue eastward, but easterly wind flow will keep clouds in over us as an area of rain approaches with a cold front from the west by the second half of the weekend.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Mostly cloudy, cool, some drizzle or showers. Lows tonight under mostly cloudy skies will be generally in the mid to upper 30s. Some drizzle or light rain is possible, along with patchy fog. Tomorrow will remain cloudy with some drizzle and a 40% chance of measurable showers. Highs will be 45-49°.

Scroll down for Camden's outlook through the rest of the weekend and into next week, including the vanishing chances for a white Christmas.

Christmas Climatology: Whitest and Wettest

Climatologically, there is only about a 10% chance of 1" or more of snow on the ground on Christmas in Washington. Since 1929, there have been only 8 such occurrences. The largest amount was 7" in 1966, with 5" and 4" in 1962 and 1963, respectively. That was the only time it happened in consecutive years. The most recent was 1989, with 2". The wettest was 1.41" of rain in 1945.

Blast From the Past: Meteorological Mystery

The winner of the virtual T-shirt in yesterday's Meteorological Mystery contest is Augusta Jim, who recognized that the low temperature can occur any time during the day, including right before midnight, so the Dec. 20 record low of 2° and the Dec. 21 record of 1° were in fact one event. You can read his explanation in yesterday's Comments section.

An Honorable Mention for creativity goes to Havoc.

Mediaorology

The dcrtv blog is reporting today that meteorologist Steve Rudin, formerly of channels 9 and 5, was spotted on News Channel 8 this morning.

In other weather media news, dcrtv reports that news station WTOP's audio has replaced classical music as background on WJLA-7's Doug Hill Weather Now digital channel (Comcast 204), and WASH's adult contemporary sound is accompanying WUSA-9's Live Doppler 9000 HD (Comcast 203).

And, in case you missed it, the results are in for the "Battle Of The Local Media Hotties": Channel 4's Chuck Bell beat out Channel 7's Adam Caskey by 1 vote. If we had only known earlier that nerdiness was so hot!

Best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday to all of our site visitors and their families from Update Central.