What felt like a very cold month of December actually isn’t even close to the coldest. Meteorologist Ally Gallo looks back at the month’s weather.

PENNSYLVANIA, USA — The warmest day of the month was on December 19, but that was also the rainiest. It was 57 degrees that day, and more than half an inch of rain fell in the Scranton area. Then temperatures fell into the 20s that night.

The coldest temperature recorded for the month of December was on the 9th. It was 3 degrees that morning in the WNEP backyard, and many places woke up to sub-zero temperatures. 

Almost every single day this month was below average; a lot of those days were well below average. Nearly half the month, the afternoon high temperature didn’t even get above freezing. 

December 2025 will not break any records, but it will be the coldest December we’ve experienced in 15 years, since 2010. And in the Scranton area, it will end up around the 20th coldest on record. 

We received about 14 inches of snow this month in the WNEP backyard, the snowiest day was on December 2 when 4.2 inches of snow fell.

The coldest New Year’s Eve ever on record was in 1917. The high that day was 5 degrees, and the low was -7.

100 years later, in 2017, it was almost just as cold; in fact, it was the 2nd coldest New Year’s Eve on record. It was 14 degrees on December 31, 2017, and the low later that night was -1. 

We were in Pottsville that year for the city’s annual, very unique New Year’s Eve Celebration, the raising of a giant Yuengling bottle. 

Newswatch 16’s Andy Palumbo recalls it was a much lighter crowd than usual, but then, right at midnight, folks braved the bitter cold to ring in the new year.

It won’t be anywhere near as cold as that this year for New Year’s Eve, but it will still be in the teens with the chance for snow at midnight.Â