OSWEGO, NY – Right on cue, Old Man Winter returns on Friday – the first day of the winter season.

For record keeping, the National Weather Service breaks the seasons into 3-month blocks with fall being September, October and November, according to Bill Gregway, local observer for the NWS.

Winter arrives at 6:12 a.m. on Friday, with wind and rain, he said. Snow showers are likely later in the day.

The average temperature for the 3 months of fall was 52.7 degrees. That is 1.5 degrees higher than average.

It was a very nice fall, Gregway said.

“The first 2 months were above average temperature wise and November was just 0.5-degree below average,” he added.

The highest temperature was 84 degrees on Sept. 3 and the lowest was 23 degrees on Nov. 30.

October 26 tied the record high temperature for that date (74 degrees); no records were broken.

We tied with 2010 and 1985, dating back to 1968 when Gregway took over weather record keeping duties.

The warmest fall, during that same timeframe, is 55.2 degrees in 2011.

We only received 5.1 inches of snow. That is 4.4 inches below average.

That’s not really that big a deal this early in the winter season, Gregway noted.

Precipitation for the fall came in at 12.39 inches. That is 0.2-inch below average.

Since the first of the year, precipitation was 32.07 inches and that is 7.06 inches below average.

That is due in large part Gregway said to a mid-summer drought, which knocked us way down.

Precipitation fell on 55 days and none fell on 36 days.

The greatest amount of precipitation to fall in a 24-hour period was 1.98 inches on Sept. 4 and 5.

The area saw 40 percent of the possible amount of sunshine. That is 5 percentages below average.

The number of cloudy days, 53, was 6 above average.

The number of partly cloudy days, 26, was 1 above average.

The number of clear days, 12, was 7 below average.

Fall 2012 saw 4 thunderstorm days, which is average. And there was 1 foggy day, which is 1 below average.

The highest barometric pressure was 30.68 on Nov. 18 and the lowest was 29.09 on Oct. 29 as the remnants of Hurricane Sandy blew by.

The fall had a fair amount of wind. The strongest winds were on Oct. 29 out of the north at 58 mph measured off shore.  There were also some damaging winds, associated with Sandy, that knocked down some trees and wires around the area, Gregway said.

The first measurable snowfall, 0.3-inch, was Nov. 24.

There was a light and scattered frost on Nov. 9. The growing season came to an end on Nov. 13 when the temperature sank below freezing for the first time.

The growing season was a bit shorter than usual coming in at 165 days.

“We had a nice little run of Indian Summer on back to back days in October (the 25th and 26th),” Gregway noted. “All 3 months actually had some nice sunny, warm and dry periods. It was a real nice fall.”