It didn’t exactly feel much like late December as the ball dropped to usher in 2023.

What You Need To Know

  • Syracuse’s average high for New Year’s is 33 degrees

  • 45% of New Year days see more than a trace of snowfall

  • This year just missed the top 10 warmest New Year days for Syracuse

This New Year’s Day did feature a bit of wet weather in Syracuse, but it wasn’t snow as you might expect. The airport actually reported light rain a few times.

The Syracuse Hancock International Airport officially hit a high of 50 degrees for that first day of 2023. But compared to last year, it was about the same considering 2022 started off with a high of 49 degrees.

To put that in perspective for you, the average high was 33 degrees.

Even though it was unseasonably mild to ring in the new year, it wasn’t record breaking. In fact, it wasn’t even enough to crack the top 10 warmest New Year’s days in Syracuse’s history.

The top spot is a two-way tie between 1919 and 1985 when Syracuse got as warm as 59 degrees. The final number 10 spot belongs to 53 degrees.

Oddly enough, the coldest New Year’s Day in Syracuse’s history happened just a year before the warmest. Syracuse only got up to 5 degrees on Jan. 1, 1918.

That’s in terms of high temperatures. If you look at low temperatures, the coldest it ever got was 15 degrees below zero. Many of you probably remember that cold New Year’s Day, considering that just happened a few years ago in 2018.

So when a brief disturbance moved through on Sunday, it’s no surprise it fell as rain instead of snow since temperatures were well above freezing this time around.

There’s not even any measurable snow left on the ground to report at the airport, either.

Based on records stretching from 1903 to 2015, 66% of New Year Days have had an inch or more of snow on the ground in Syracuse, with 45% seeing more than a trace of fresh snowfall in Syracuse too.

So about 1 out of every 2 years, snowflakes are flying at some point on New Year’s Day. Syracuse saw rain, not snow this year, and that was the case last year, as well.

The most snow that ever fell on New Year’s Day in Syracuse was 11.4 inches back in 1961. In terms of most snow already being on the ground, that belongs to Jan. 1, 1998 with a snow depth of 21 inches.

Maybe it’ll feel a little more like winter by the time 2024 rolls around.

Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.