A cold start to January was balanced with a warmer end of the month.
Clinton area weather observer Jim Blaess says the month started with a record low of 20 below zero on January first. The record for the date was 17 below set in 1968. There were nine days in the month with zero or below temperatures and the normal is five days.
Blaess says there were warmer days later in the month with the highest temperature a 55 degree day January 22nd. He says that was not a record for the date.
The Clinton area weather observer says the overall temperature was about 21 degrees and that is about a degree below the overall normal.
Blaess measured 0.37-tenths of an inch of precipitation. He says that’s about an inch below the normal (1.45 inches). That made month the 6th driest January on record to 1878.
There was 1.5 inches snow and that is the 12th the least snow in a January to the 1887-1888 period. Blaess says the normal snow recorded in January is 9.4 inches.
Blaess also pointed out that over the last three years been just under 4 inches of snow combined in January. Blaess says there was 1.4 inches of snow in January 2016 and .8 of an inch in 2017 and then 1.5 inches in January 2018.
In the October thru January snow season, Blaess says there has been just under seven inches of snow (6.9 inches). He says that is the 12th least snow in the period since the 1877-88 period.
Blaess says in February you can expect 1.63 inches of hs of an inch of precipitation with 7.6 inches of snow.
There are also an average of 3 days with zero or below temperatures.
The Clinton area weather observer added that February 2017 was the warmest February on record to 1887 and tied 1930 for the most days with 60 or above temperatures with seven days.
