Christmas week in Mobile can feel like two different planets from one year to the next — and the record books back that up.
According to the National Weather Service, the average temperature for Dec. 25 in Mobile is a mild 52 degrees, with average rainfall of about 0.20 inches and an average snowfall of exactly zero. But those averages hide some dramatic extremes.
The coldest Christmas ever recorded in Mobile came in 1983, when the temperature bottomed out at just 23 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas Day — part of the legendary December 1983 freeze that crippled the Gulf Coast and devastated area citrus and nursery crops.
The hottest Christmas on record arrived just recently, in 2016, when the mercury hit 80 degrees. Families that year traded fireplaces for front-porch afternoons, and some celebrated in shorts.
Forecasters note that Mobile sits far enough south that white Christmases are essentially unheard of — measurable Christmas snowfall has never been recorded in the city — yet close enough to arctic air corridors that Gulf Coast residents should never assume warmth is guaranteed.
As for this year, the National Weather Service’s outlook called for above-normal temperatures across the region heading into the holiday, keeping with Mobile’s reputation for celebrating Christmas in the seventies as often as not.