When Does Duluth Typically See Its First Below Zero Temperature?

Winter is here in the Twin Ports and to be honest, we have been pretty spoiled in terms of winters so far in the area. We've seen much colder and much snowier winters up until this point.

The Old Farmer's Almanac had me a bit scared when they stated in September that this was going to be an awful winter. In fact, they said it would be one of the longest and coldest winters for the Twin Ports. Yikes.

A few months before that, the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center said a La Niña winter was likely again for this 2021 to 2022 winter season. Basically, we've been bracing ourselves for a brutal winter.

Needless to say, we haven't been hit that hard yet. We did see our first accumulating snowfall during the first full weekend in December but it wasn't that bad. Duluth saw about six to seven inches of snow so it could have been worse.

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Even with our accumulating snowfall, it didn't get too cold. We actually didn't see our first really cold day until Monday (December 6th). We saw an overnight low of seven below in the Duluth area.

This got me thinking - was this late for seeing our first temperature below zero? I feel like it usually happens in November rather than early in December. Brandon Weathers, meteorologist at WDIO, shared some statistics on this that answered my very question.

I am shocked that this time of year is pretty much standard to get our first below zero temperature. I always assumed it was in November at the latest. This is the Twin Ports after all.

The average, as you can see in the information Brandon shared, is the first of December, with the earliest being in early November. That happened back in 1951. I really didn't think that was that early so my mind is blown!

What would be truly ideal would be to break the ultimate record for the latest date the Duluth area has seen a below zero temperature! That happened in 1914, where Duluth didn't fall below zero until January 11th. A girl can dream!

One thing is for sure: the Old Farmer's Almanac didn't do too hot for their predictions this month. They said we wouldn't see any major snowstorms in our area this month and just a few days into December, we saw accumulating snow.