The forecast for Washington, DC on Wednesday requires mostly sunny skies, with a noon temperature around 40 degrees. He’s waiting be a little windy, with sustained winds from the northwest at 10 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.
The high afternoon temperature should warm up a few more degrees, reaching a maximum of around 45 degrees, but gusts of wind will keep temperatures “as if” in the mid-1930s for most of the ceremony.
Memories of the past
By far the worst weather belongs to the two inaugurations that led to the deaths of those who lived in the White House.
In 1841, President William Henry Harrison was sworn in on a miserable cloudy, cold, windy day. He sat outside for almost two hours without a hat or overcoat. He caught a cold, became pneumonia, and died just a month later.
Then, in 1853, First Lady Abigail Fillmore, who was attending the very cold and snowy inauguration of President Franklin Pierce, sat on a cold, damp, exposed platform during the ceremony. As a result, he developed a cold, which then turned into pneumonia and he died at the end of the month.
Don’t forget the date!
However, it is probably not fair to consider many of the Opening Days prior to 1937, as the seasons do not match.
In 1937, Inauguration Day was moved from March 4 to January 20 as a way to shorten the transition period of lame ducks.
For example, Woodrow Wilson in 1913 (first term) and Ronald Reagan in 1981 (first term) both had the opening day time, consisting of cloudy skies and temperatures of 55 degrees. But one of those 55-degree days was in March (when the normal maximum is 52 degrees), and the other was in January (when the normal maximum is 43 degrees). So it’s a bigger deal for Reagan than for Wilson.
The snowiest month of the year for DC is actually February, right in the middle of both opening dates.