January 2009 is going to go down as a cold and relatively dry month in southeastern Wisconsin. Our snow this month will actually be below normal for monthly standards. We are at 9.9″ for the month. Normally in January, we receive closer to 14″ of snow.
Temperatures are running almost 5 degrees below normal for the month. The warmest temperature we have had has been 35 degrees on the 3rd and 4th of this month. We have not had a temperature above freezing since January 6th. That leaves us at 23 days in a row, far from the record 52 days in 1977 and 1978. We have a chance at 32 on Saturday.
With December and January so much colder than normal, February would have to be much warmer than normal to get our meteorological winter (Dec-Feb) above normal. This is not likely to happen so the winter will be colder than normal contrary to the initial long-range forecasts of an above normal winter. This is another reason I am not a fan of long-range forecasts.
No big storms for us in the forecast through next week. Have a good weekend.
Mark Baden
