Wednesday, February 1, 2023

2023 off to gloomy start

The first month in 2023 is now done and the verdict is: cloudy. This past month ran a bit warmer than average with overnight lows about 3º above average and daytime highs a single degree above normal. The month was relatively drama free but limited to just two days of sunshine which happened to come on the last three days of the month and under chilly temps. There was measurable precipitation on 21 of 31 days almost all of in in the form of rain. Just one day have snowfall and that only stuck for a few minutes measuring a trace of about 0.1 inch. 

Temperatures ranged from a chilly 13.4º on the morning of the 30th to a balmy afternoon high on the 8th of 52.6º. The warmest overnight low arrived on the 13th with 47.3º and the chilliest afternoon high arrived on the 29th with 38.1º. Obviously we managed to get above freezing on every single day in January 2023. We only had 4 days with temperatures below freezing and just the one day under 20º so really a rather uneventful temperature range. The 13.4º low on the 30th was not quite enough to break my local 21 year record for the day which was 13.3º and that is the coldest January day since I started keeping my records, so that was almost a monthly record low :) I did have a local 21 year daily record high last month recorded on the 9th with 51.2º. Another odd record was the high on 29th of 38.1º just barely edged out the previous record low maximum temp. 

January delivered a whopping 8 days with highs above 50º and only 3 days that failed to reach 40º. There were 11 days with overnight lows above 40º. The month delivered 21 rainy days against just 2 sunny days and the wettest day was a modest 0.51 inch on the 12th which was one of 7 days producing a 1/4 inch or more. Total rainfall was well below average with just 4.29 inches landing in my bucket. The only snow came in flurries of snow and graupel on the 23rd sticking only for a short while.

February can be a mixed bag as normal temps tend to float in the 50s by day and upper 30s by night. But deep freezes can happen as well as heavy snow, we shall see.