There’s a chill in the air here, and not all from the virus
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Version 0 of 1. What has been going on in Washington in recent days is not normal. This refers not only to the concern about the novel coronavirus, but also to our weather, which has been anything but normal. Of the past dozen days, the average temperature on 11 of them has been below normal. As of Saturday, only one of the dozen deviated from that pattern. That day, April 20, was normal. Since April 14, not a single day in Washington has recorded an above-normal daily temperature. On Saturday, the high temperature reached 65 degrees. That was not the sort of reading to send shivers down our spines. But this is the middle of spring. The normal temperature in Washington for the date is 70. Saturday’s low of 48 might not have seemed intolerable, but it was nevertheless two degrees below the normal low for April 25 in Washington, which is 50. Deprived of our normal April warmth, we may have been finding recent days even cooler than the thermometer shows. Often damp and gray, the cool stretch seems at odds with our recent meteorological history. Over recent months, the tale of the thermometer has been one of increasing warmth. Until April, each month of 2020 has been warmer than normal. But April’s average temperature has now sunk a bit below normal, the inevitable consequence of the series of cool days. Washington is said to be restless over efforts to remain at home to stop the virus’s spread. Many seem to regard it as a challenge to stay indoors and chill. But if an adequate state of chill has proved hard to attain psychologically, it has seemed on many a recent night all too easily achievable physically. On three recent nights, the temperature fell to no more than six degrees above freezing. Local newsletters: Local headlines (8 a.m.) | Afternoon Buzz (4 p.m.) Like PostLocal on Facebook | Follow @postlocal on Twitter | Latest local news |