January 2025 General Discussion

[mannynyc]

4 hours ago, A-L-E-K said:

riding

Should be a mildly interesting storm, at least where I am in Iowa. 

[OrdIowPitMsp]

46 currently. Record is 47, top shelf late January day for Minnesota. 
 

With not much snow on the ground I’ll take these warm days if it’s going to be dry. 

[beavis1729]

6 minutes ago, OrdIowPitMsp said:

46 currently. Record is 47, top shelf late January day for Minnesota. 
 

With not much snow on the ground I’ll take these warm days if it’s going to be dry. 

It's bad enough this winter in MSP...but I just saw that Mason City IA has 2.7" of snow for the entire season, and Omaha NE has 1.0".  There aren't really enough words in the English language to describe how bad this is. 

Even worse, it applies to a wide swath of geography across the lower 48...basically coast-to-coast north of 40N outside of the lake belts.    

[SchaumburgStormer]

1 minute ago, beavis1729 said:

It's bad enough this winter in MSP...but I just saw that Mason City IA has 2.7" of snow for the entire season, and Omaha NE has 1.0".  There aren't really enough words in the English language to describe how bad this is. 

Even worse, it applies to a wide swath of geography across the lower 48...basically coast-to-coast north of 40N outside of the lake belts.    

[OrdIowPitMsp]

14 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

It's bad enough this winter in MSP...but I just saw that Mason City IA has 2.7" of snow for the entire season, and Omaha NE has 1.0".  There aren't really enough words in the English language to describe how bad this is. 

Even worse, it applies to a wide swath of geography across the lower 48...basically coast-to-coast north of 40N outside of the lake belts.    

Not trying to polish a turd or anything but at least we haven’t been wasting precipitation on rain. It’s just been very dry across the region this year. Outside of this week and the week after Christmas temperatures have been seasonable this winter as well. 

[Maxim]

1 hour ago, OrdIowPitMsp said:

46 currently. Record is 47, top shelf late January day for Minnesota. 
 

With not much snow on the ground I’ll take these warm days if it’s going to be dry. 

That’s it? damn

[OrdIowPitMsp]

22 minutes ago, Maxim said:

That’s it? damn

Life on the 45th. 
 

Go up to International Falls, several January daily record high temps in the 30s. 

[hawkeye_wx]

We made it to the low 50s again today.

[roardog]

The winter up to this point has reminded me of a weak Nino type of pattern where you get the cold air but it’s dry. We’ve also had the southern snow like a Nino and when the warmth comes, it comes from westerly flow from a folding over PNA ridge. Obviously this is all about to change in the coming days 

[bowtie`]

Another day or two of this and we will be down to just a smattering of brown piles here.

 

[michsnowfreak]

2 hours ago, roardog said:

The winter up to this point has reminded me of a weak Nino type of pattern where you get the cold air but it’s dry. We’ve also had the southern snow like a Nino and when the warmth comes, it comes from westerly flow from a folding over PNA ridge. Obviously this is all about to change in the coming days 

Yes! Didn't think or that but that's a good point

 

[Snowstorms]

Measured 3.2" with the clipper that went through the area early this evening. Temperatures hovered around 21 so we had some good ratios. Light snow should continue through the night.

[King James]

It’s crazy how windy it’s been here today. Usually we need some kind of decent storm to get 50+ gusts. It’s even more unusual to get that with warm air advection. 

It’s windy all the time now.


.

[cyclone77]

Still looking pretty snowless through mid Feb.  With MLI still at only 3.6", and the all-time record low snow season at 9.9" it's starting to look like a great shot at new all-time futility.  After such a horrible winter it would be some consolation to have what looked like an unbeatable record beaten.  Unfortunately there's always the chance that we nickel and dime our way past the 10" mark in late Feb and March.  

[Baum]

3 minutes ago, cyclone77 said:

Still looking pretty snowless through mid Feb.  With MLI still at only 3.6", and the all-time record low snow season at 9.9" it's starting to look like a great shot at new all-time futility.  After such a horrible winter it would be some consolation to have what looked like an unbeatable record beaten.  Unfortunately there's always the chance that we nickel and dime our way past the 10" mark in late Feb and March.  

will be beaten easily.

[Cary67]

9 hours ago, Snowstorms said:

Measured 3.2" with the clipper that went through the area early this evening. Temperatures hovered around 21 so we had some good ratios. Light snow should continue through the night.

What's your seasonal total?

[michsnowfreak]

1 hour ago, cyclone77 said:

Still looking pretty snowless through mid Feb.  With MLI still at only 3.6", and the all-time record low snow season at 9.9" it's starting to look like a great shot at new all-time futility.  After such a horrible winter it would be some consolation to have what looked like an unbeatable record beaten.  Unfortunately there's always the chance that we nickel and dime our way past the 10" mark in late Feb and March.  

 

1 hour ago, Baum said:

will be beaten easily.

Especially with a changing pattern, i still think its way early. I dont have any stake in it either way, but its a pretty tall task to assume that less than 6.3" of snow will fall there in the next 3 months. 

 

FWIW, the 3.6" at MLI is their 10th lowest total thru 1/28. The lowest was 0.4" in 1944 (The 1943-44 season ended with 17.3").

[michsnowfreak]

DTW hit 41F yesterday evening, the first 40F day of January. Snow depth is down to 1".

[TheClimateChanger]

On 1/28/2025 at 6:09 AM, Maxim said:

Curious as to why LOT significantly lowered Thursday's highs across the CWA. Still looks on track to be well into the 50s areawide IMO, so I'm not really sure what they're seeing. Guess we'll see.

They have bumped it back up. Now saying near record warmth is likely.

Thursday

Partly cloudy in the morning, then mostly cloudy with a slight chance of rain showers late in the afternoon. Near record breaking warmth likely. Highs in the lower 50s. South winds 10 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. Chance of precipitation 20 percent.

[TheClimateChanger]

2 hours ago, cyclone77 said:

Still looking pretty snowless through mid Feb.  With MLI still at only 3.6", and the all-time record low snow season at 9.9" it's starting to look like a great shot at new all-time futility.  After such a horrible winter it would be some consolation to have what looked like an unbeatable record beaten.  Unfortunately there's always the chance that we nickel and dime our way past the 10" mark in late Feb and March.  

I took a deep dive on that winter. While definitely meager on the snowfall totals, the 9.9" figure is missing two snow events.

An even deeper dive under the hood reveals the reason for the missing data.

What is now the official "station thread" was then jumping around between what is now known as Quad Cities International Airport and the WB office in downtown Davenport, Iowa, as there were periods without observations at the airport.

Looking at an old annual weather review for MLI, we can see that there was no snowfall observations in December, January and February at the airport, but portions of the station thread incorporate the airport data for the months of December and February, as there were temperature and precipitation observations.

Unfortunately, this results in the missing snowstorm from early December 1936 (see earlier post), and also loss of snow that fell in an apparent rain-to-snow event in late February. Davenport WBO only had 2.5" and 1.3" in those events, but even that would place 1936-1937 out of futility. Judging by the observed temps and precipitation in the early December event, it would appear likely that the airport area had more snowfall in that event. The missing data could be rectified by simply using the city office observations for the entire month of December & February, but unfortunately that's not what the station thread does.

The Davenport WBO records for January also inexplicably have a few dates on which snowdepth increased, even though no measurable snowfall fell. I can live with that - even if it is an anomaly/irregularity - but the missing data ought to be rectified. This was also the case in many of the early winter records, including that from the #2 lowest snow year (1901-1902). No missing data that winter though. But it was clearly miles better than this winter, with actually fairly deep snow cover (5-6") for an extended period of time, despite the reported seasonal snow being only 11.1 inches.

[michsnowfreak]

Re: the 1936-37 winter, while it appears Moline had some missing data, it was a remarkably putrid winter for many. It holds the record as the least snowiest winter on record for both Detroit (12.9") and Boston (9.0"), and 3rd least snowy winter for Chicago (12.0"). Also, for Detroit, with only 10 days of 1"+ snowcover, it ranks as the "barest" winter since 1908 (snowcover data for me is missing a lot of data pre-1908).

[A-L-E-K]

 

 

[Maxim]

4 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

They have bumped it back up. Now saying near record warmth is likely.

Thursday

Partly cloudy in the morning, then mostly cloudy with a slight chance of rain showers late in the afternoon. Near record breaking warmth likely. Highs in the lower 50s. South winds 10 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. Chance of precipitation 20 percent.

Still too low IMO, but that's nice to see.

[Chicago Storm]

Breezy conditions the past few days... ORD had a peak wind gust of 40MPH on Monday and 43MPH yesterday.

[michsnowfreak]

DTW made it to 43 today. Snowcover is down to patches and piles. After having snow on the ground for a while, even though not deep, seeing all the grass has that weird look. Oh, and gross too 

[TheClimateChanger]

As noted elsewhere in this thread, MSP tied a record of 47F yesterday.

Much more widespread record-breaking warmth is expected tomorrow in the Midwest. Some records to watch for 1/30, from long POR sites, with current forecasted values in bold.

Minneapolis: 48F Forecast: 49F

St. Cloud: 44F Forecast: 44F

Eau Claire: 50F Forecast: 48F

Madison: 47F Forecast: 54F

Milwaukee: 53F Forecast: 54F

Rockford: 52F Forecast: 54F

Chicago: 55F Forecast: 53F

Green Bay: 42F Forecast: 53F

Wausau: 43F Forecast: 48F

Rhinelander: 44F Forecast: 44F

Most notably, at Green Bay, the forecast for tomorrow is a whopping 11F warmer than the daily record and just 3F shy of the January monthly record. Quite uncharacteristic for the home of Lambeau Field in January.

[TheClimateChanger]

3 hours ago, A-L-E-K said:

 

 

As shown by the map shared by @A-L-E-K, some of these forecast values may be overly conservative.

[Chicago Storm]

The Chicago high temp record for tomorrow is an unimpressive/low hanging fruit record.

It is the only record after the 22nd that is not 60+.

[TheClimateChanger]

11 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

As noted elsewhere in this thread, MSP tied a record of 47F yesterday.

Much more widespread record-breaking warmth is expected tomorrow in the Midwest. Some records to watch for 1/30, from long POR sites, with current forecasted values in bold.

Minneapolis: 48F Forecast: 49F

St. Cloud: 44F Forecast: 44F

Eau Claire: 50F Forecast: 48F

Madison: 47F Forecast: 54F

Milwaukee: 53F Forecast: 54F

Rockford: 52F Forecast: 54F

Chicago: 55F Forecast: 53F

Green Bay: 42F Forecast: 53F

Wausau: 43F Forecast: 48F

Rhinelander: 44F Forecast: 44F

Most notably, at Green Bay, the forecast for tomorrow is a whopping 11F warmer than the daily record and just 3F shy of the January monthly record. Quite uncharacteristic for the home of Lambeau Field in January.

Another round of near-record warmth is possible on Sunday, February 2nd, in some locations.

[TheClimateChanger]

23 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

As noted elsewhere in this thread, MSP tied a record of 47F yesterday.

Much more widespread record-breaking warmth is expected tomorrow in the Midwest. Some records to watch for 1/30, from long POR sites, with current forecasted values in bold.

Minneapolis: 48F Forecast: 49F

St. Cloud: 44F Forecast: 44F

Eau Claire: 50F Forecast: 48F

Madison: 47F Forecast: 54F

Milwaukee: 53F Forecast: 54F

Rockford: 52F Forecast: 54F

Chicago: 55F Forecast: 53F

Green Bay: 42F Forecast: 53F

Wausau: 43F Forecast: 48F

Rhinelander: 44F Forecast: 44F

Most notably, at Green Bay, the forecast for tomorrow is a whopping 11F warmer than the daily record and just 3F shy of the January monthly record. Quite uncharacteristic for the home of Lambeau Field in January.

A couple others to look out for... forgot to check the NWS office in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

La Crosse: 48F Forecast: 57F

Rochester: 48F Forecast: 53F

The forecast high of 57F at La Crosse would match the all-time January record.