December 2020 Weather Report

As December brought the grim year of 2020 to a close, we didn’t really have much to hope for. However, the end of December 2020 brought some good news along with it. As compared December 2019, Riyadh witnessed a dip in the average temperature for December 2020. Multiple air quality stations scattered across the city of Riyadh are constantly recording the temperature, dust cases, pollution levels and weather conditions. Thanks to the data generated and analyzed by these stations, it was observed that average temperature dipped by one degree celsius in December 2020, in comparison to last year’s readings.

The monitoring station in Al Ha’ir recorded the lowest temperatures for December 2020—5.2 degrees celsius. On the other hand, the air quality monitoring station on the Southern Ring Road recorded the highest temperature of the month—29.2 degrees celsius. Several factors are responsible for this dip in the temperature in Riyadh. An increase in the area of green patches within the city has ensured that carbon dioxide is absorbed effectively to produce more oxygen and absorb the atmospheric heat.

Another important factor at play here is rainfall. Sufficient rainfall can play a huge role in bringing down temperatures and Riyadh saw adequate levels of precipitation in December 2020. The city’s monitoring stations are also responsible for recording rainfall levels and this data is analyzed to understand the city’s pattern of rainfall and weather conditions. The Al-Malaz neighbourhood in Riyadh recorded the highest precipitation rate with 6 mm of rainfall. Meanwhile, the Al-Aziziyah neighbourhood recorded the lowest precipitation rate with 0.4 mm of rainfall.

The air quality monitoring stations also revealed that Riyadh did not record any dust cases in December 2020. As the year came to a close, the data from these stations revealed that the city of Riyadh recorded 39 cases in 2020 with a total of 315 hours.