Old Man Winter began to show his cold heart last month in Berks County as the temperatures slid and snow and ice began to show up in many spots.<\/p>\n
Gone was the mild weather, picture-perfect sunny days often in the 60s and 70s that ran through October and the first third of November.<\/p>\n
The temperature has not been as high as 60 degrees since Nov. 9 and a bone-chilling cold settled in the final handful of days to end the month, with the mercury not even finding 45 degrees.<\/p>\n
Last month was the first November since 2019 to not warm to 70 degrees, before that, 2012, said Jeffrey R. Stoudt, Berks weather historian and retired meteorologist.<\/p>\n
He added that even more unusual was the mildness of the month lowest of 28 degrees.<\/p>\n
Novembers of 1998 and 1985 also had 28 as lowest. It was 57 years ago in 1968 that a November had a milder low temperature, which was 30. The mildest November low of 31 occurred in 1948, Stoudt said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this November lacked both really warm and cold temperatures,\u201d Stoudt said.<\/p>\n
Moving on to precipitation, Stoudt added it was much less than average but still far above the 10 driest. Snow on Nov. 30 was sub-measurable officially for the Reading area but could have left a light coating at some places of northern Berks or high elevations, he said.<\/p>\n
The dry conditions of the fall continued, as did the dry conditions of Novembers this decade.<\/p>\n
Since Sept. 1, Reading Regional Airport has seen just 7.42 inches of precipitation. Normal is 11.58. The total for the year of 41.32 inches is near normal.<\/p>\n
The county as a whole is at nearly 41 inches for the year, according to a division of the National Weather Service. And, that\u2019s more than any other county in the eastern half of the state<\/a>. Most are 11% to 25% below normal.<\/p>\n No Novembers have even reached the average precipitation for the month since 2018, when 8.18 inches of rainfall at the airport became the third-wettest November on record.<\/p>\n It would help propel 2018 to the wettest year in the Berks database, now in its 157th year, at 68.08 inches, eclipsing the previous wettest from 1889.<\/p>\n Midwinter conditions<\/p>\n