The forecast for Washington, DC on Wednesday calls for mostly sunny skies with midday temperatures of around 40 degrees. It is expected be a bit windy, with sustained northwest winds at 10 mph, with gusts of up to 20 mph.
The high afternoon temperature should warm up a few more degrees, peaking at around 45 degrees, but gusts of wind will keep the “touch” temperatures in the mid 30s for most of the ceremony.
Shoot from the past
By far the worst weather is among the two inaugurations that led to the deaths of those living in the White House.
In 1841, President William Henry Harrison was sworn in on a miserable, cloudy, cold, and windy day. He was outside for almost two hours without a hat or overcoat. He eventually caught a cold that progressed to pneumonia, and he died just a month later.
Then, in 1853, outgoing First Lady Abigail Fillmore, who attended President Franklin Pierce’s very cold and snowy inauguration, sat on a cold, wet and bare platform during the ceremony. She caught a cold, which then turned into pneumonia, and died at the end of the month.
Don’t forget the date!
However, it probably isn’t fair to consider many of the Inauguration Days before 1937, as the seasons don’t match.
In 1937, Inauguration Day was moved from March 4 to January 20 as a way to shorten the transition period for lame duck.
For example, Woodrow Wilson in 1913 (first term) and Ronald Reagan in 1981 (first term) both had inauguration day weather consisting of overcast skies and temperatures of 55 degrees. But one of those 55-degree days was in March (when the normal high is 52 degrees), and the other was in January (when the normal high is 43 degrees). So it’s a bigger deal for Reagan than it is for Wilson.
The snowiest month of the year for DC is actually February, right in the middle of both inauguration dates.