New Year’s weather in Philly should be ‘pretty good by winter standards,’ forecasters say

There are only a few days left until the ball drops at midnight, welcoming 2024.

Whether you are looking forward to fireworks (or working hard to avoid them), getting ready to watch the Eagles play the Arizona Cardinals, or excited to start the year at the Mummers Parade, here is what New Year’s weather is bringing to the region.

“New Year’s Eve looks pretty good by winter standards, but it’s still chilly out there,” said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc.

Temperatures are expected to be around 40 degrees, with a high of 47 and a low of 35, much like last year. “You got to bundle up some, certainly a hat will come in handy, and gloves and mittens as well,” he said.

For folks planning to see fireworks — they happen at 6 p.m. and midnight at Penn’s Landing — it might be “too early to determine an exact visibility level … but expect partly to mostly cloudy skies,” said Joe DeSilva, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Mount Holly office.

New Year’s Eve, at least, is expected to be dry with no precipitation in the forecast and “just enough of a breeze” to make Kines hopeful for good firework-viewing conditions.

“Sunday night and day are shaping up to be pretty decent,” said Kines. “Not much wind, and relatively mild afternoon temperatures into the middle 40s,” he added.

New Year’s Day comes with a slight chance of showers.

There is a 20% chance of rain, according to DeSilva and Kines, and any showers would follow December’s weather trends.

“This month is going to go down as one of the wetter Decembers on record,” Kines said.

So far this month, the city has seen close to 8 inches of rain, according to AccuWeather Inc. “Typically we get around 4 inches for the entire month, so we have almost doubled it,” Kines said.

This increase in precipitation has resulted in flooding in the area.

Rains on Wednesday night into Thursday caused some localized flooding around the region, including major roads like Columbus Boulevard and Kelly Drive. The Schuylkill River Trail was under a flood warning, as rain from the weekend before Christmas had already saturated the grounds.

“We haven’t had a lot of dry air or breezy conditions to dry things out,” said the weather service’s Alex Staarmann. “We ended up getting another widespread, kind of 1 and a half to 2 and a half inches of rain over the same area, with all the rivers and streams still kind of running above normal from the previous heavy rain event [it] resulted in a lot more flooding.”