DC: December Chill, Dueling Climate

Now

Sunny, cold. After reaching morning lows of 27° at National and 20° at Dulles, temperatures are again barely reaching the 40s in the Washington metro area this afternoon, in spite of light southerly breezes. The air remains dry, with dewpoints within a couple of degrees either side of 20°. Last year's record of 74° was clearly in no danger of being broken, with identical highs of 41° at National, Dulles, and BWI.

Some high clouds overrunning the cold high pressure area sliding out to the east have dimmed the weak December sunshine. More clouds will be rolling in tomorrow, but with only a slight chance of precipitation.

CapitalWeather.com chart from NWS data, photo © Kevin Ambrose

Tonight and Tomorrow

Increasing clouds, cold. Lows tonight under partly cloudy skies will be not as cold as last night, 30-34° in the city and 24-28° in 'burbistan. Tomorrow will be mostly cloudy with highs 43-48°.

Scroll down for Matt's outlook through the rest of the week and into the weekend.

Political Science: "Stalling in Bali"

The performance of the U.S. at the just-concluded U.N. climate conference in Bali gets some serious criticism in at least one major newspaper today. The Dot Earth blog at the NYTi had a conference review over the weekend.

Last night's PBS NewsHour featured dueling climate negotiators, past and present. Transcript, podcasts (real and mp3 formats) and streaming video are all available at the show's web site.