Hoping for good weather

WASHINGTON - "I knew it would be a cold day when I was made president," William Howard Taft joked just a century ago, taking office in 1909 in what has been described as the worst inaugural weather ever. Ten inches of snow fell. And that was when presidents were sworn in in March.

Now the ceremony is held in January and President-elect Barack Obama is hoping his weather luck holds.

He chose an outdoor location for his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last August and got a balmy night with no precipitation. On election night the weather favored his Chicago victory celebration, with the temperature around 60 degrees, unusual for a November night in Chicago.

So, what to expect on this Inauguration Day?

Although the event is still a week away, the current Weather Service forecast for Jan. 20 is morning clouds giving way to afternoon sun with highs in the upper 30s and a 10 percent chance of precipitation.

Local authorities bracing for a record turnout for the nation's first African-American president may recall the worst inaugural traffic jam.

An 8-inch snowfall on the eve of John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961 left hundreds of cars marooned and thousands more abandoned. The president-elect had to cancel dinner plans and, in a struggle to keep other commitments, is reported to have had only four hours of sleep. Bad as it was for Taft, his wasn't the coldest inauguration - Ronald Reagan's was, in 1985. The hottest? Gerald R. Ford's, 89 degrees on Aug. 9, 1974. *