‘Very, very cold’: Inauguration temperatures will be lowest since 1985

On January 16, 2025By Littum

It will be bitterly cold for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday as temperatures drop well below average for this time of year in the DC area.

It will be bitterly cold for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday as temperatures drop well below average for this season in the DC area.

The forecast calls for snow on Sunday, followed by gusts of wind and high temperatures of only around 20 degrees.

“We’re going to have dangerously cold temperatures with low wind chills,” said Brian LaSorsa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

By late morning, temperatures will likely drop from the teens to the low to mid 20s for the actual air temperature.

The hundreds of thousands of people in town for the inauguration will feel a strong wind blowing almost constantly throughout the day.

“We’re looking at winds around 15 to 20 miles per hour with gusts of 25 to 30 miles per hour,” LaSorsa said. “When you combine that with the very cold air temperatures, that’s what’s going to cause the dangerously low wind chill values.”

The wind chill will be in the single digits to lower teens.

“It’s going to be very, very cold,” LaSorsa said. “Our average high for what it’s worth is in the upper 30s, so we’ll be well below average for this time of year.”

If the forecast holds, the inauguration would be by far the coldest since former President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985, when the inauguration had to be held indoors and the parade was canceled.

The temperature at noon that day was only 7 degrees, with chills of between -10 and -20.

In his inaugural address, Reagan even mentioned the weather.

“We are standing again at the steps of this symbol of our democracy — well, we would have been standing at the steps if it hadn’t been so cold,” Reagan said. “Now we stand inside this symbol of our democracy.”

Former President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961 was also extremely cold at 22 degrees with several inches of snow on the ground.

It was 42 degrees for President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. In 2017, for Trump’s first inauguration, it was 48 degrees.

Former President Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration was 45 degrees, and it was down to 28 degrees for Obama’s 2009 inauguration.

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