Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony will have to be held indoors due to the cold weather forecast for Monday in Washington DC.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president-elect said he will now take the oath of office inside the Capitol Rotunda building, where dignitaries and guests will gather and prayers and other speeches will also be delivered.

This means that the approximately 250,000 people who had tickets to watch the inauguration from around the Capitol will no longer be able to do so.

Thousands more were expected to be in general admission areas or to line the route from the Capitol Building to the White House.

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Trump said Washington’s Capital One Arena would open for a screening of his inauguration rite and to host the presidential parade.

“I will sign up for the crowd at Capital One after my swearing-in,” he said.

Outlining the reasons for the swearing-in ceremony being moved indoors, he wrote in his Truth Social post: “The weather forecast for Washington DC, with the wind chill factor, could take temperatures into severe record lows.

“There is an explosion in the Arctic that is ravaging the country. I don’t need to see other people get hurt or harmed in any way.

“It is dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of law enforcement, first responders, police K9s and even horses, and hundreds of thousands of supporters that will be outside for many hours on the 20th.

“In any event, if you decide to come, dress warmly.”

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Trump wrote that all other events like his inauguration “will be equal,” adding the victory rally at Capital One Arena on Sunday and the three inaugural balls on Monday night.

He added: “Everyone will be safe, everyone will be happy, and together we will make America great and new!”

A spokesperson for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) said in a statement that it would “honor the request of the president-elect and his Presidential Inaugural Committee to move the 60th Inaugural Ceremony inside the United States Capitol to the rotunda. “

The last time a swearing-in ceremony was held indoors was Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985. Monday’s forecast suggests the lowest inauguration day temperatures since that day.

The National Weather Service predicts temperatures will be around -6°C at noon on Inauguration Day, the coldest temperature since Reagan’s second inauguration, when temperatures dropped to -14°C.

During Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the temperature was -2°C. To climb the slope, the wind is expected to be between 30 and 35 mph.

In the days after his first inauguration in 2017, Trump accused the media of mendacity about participation in the ceremony.

The president insisted that crowds at the event stretched back all the way to the Washington Monument, even though photographs and footage from the scene showed large, empty spaces around the landmark.

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His then press secretary Sean Spicer went one further during a heated White House briefing, describing it as “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period”.

Although the National Park Service no longer provides attendance estimates for the inaugurations, photographic evidence shows that many more people attended Obama’s rite in 2009.