January 2018 Saint Cloud Weather Summary

January 2018 St. Cloud Weather Summary

The second month of meteorological winter produced its share of cold periods, but ended up being a bit warmer than average. The average St. Cloud January temperature was 13.3°F, 1.7°F milder than average. There were 6 days that were at least 13 degrees colder than average in the first two weeks of January. However, there were only 2 days that did not have above average temperatures in the last two weeks of January.

The cold periods included 16 mornings with a low temperature of zero or colder, right about average for January. For the winter season through February 2, there have been 26 mornings with a low of zero or colder. The average for the whole winter is 43 days. There was one morning with a low of at least -20 degrees, -22 degrees on January 6. That makes two mornings this winter, still well short of the 5 days in an average winter. On January 5, the temperature never got above zero, making it the fifth day this winter when the temperature never made it past zero which is slightly higher than the 4.3 day average for the entire winter.

St. Cloud did end up with a total of 13 consecutive mornings with a low of zero or colder between December 24 and January 6. The last streak of at least 13 straight lows of zero or colder was February 4 through 16 of 2003. There was a longer streak of 20 days between January 18 and February 6, 1996. This included 6 straight days with a low of at least -30 and the last day St. Cloud hit -40 (February 2, 1996, the day Tower set the Minnesota state record cold temperature of -60). The St. Cloud record for consecutive lows of zero or colder is 37 days, set between January 17 and February 22 of 1936.

However, there were no cold record temperatures set or even approached. In fact, the only record temperature set in January was a record warm low temperature of 32 degrees, set on January 10.

The most unusual aspect of the past month was the continued lack of snow in central Minnesota. The St. Cloud Prison only recorded 4.6 inches of snow in January. This was 4.0 inches below the January average of 8.6 inches. For the winter season so far, St. Cloud has only picked up 16.4 inches, 10.8 inches below average. In recent years, the winter of 2011-2012 also had 16.2 inches through the end of January. Most recently, the smallest amount of St. Cloud snow through January was in 2006-2007 with only 4.7 inches of snow. However, there have been 41 winters since 1905 with 17 inches or fewer than the end of January, so it isn't that rare to get off to such a slow start.

The heaviest snowfall of the month in St. Cloud was not the January 22 blizzard that hit the Twin Cities, southwestern, south central, and east central Minnesota with a swath of 8-14 inches of snow. However, the St. Cloud area didn't get any accumulation. The largest snowfall was the 3.4 inches of fluffy snow that fell on January 14. This actually set a new daily snowfall record for St. Cloud, since the old record was 3.0 inches, set in 1952. Note that nearly half of the seasonal snowfall so far has been produced on 2 days, January 14 and November 4, which also produced a record daily snowfall of 4.0 inches.

The snow cover disappeared in St. Cloud on January 27 after 47 straight days with at least an inch on the ground. For the entire winter, there have been 50 days with at least an inch on the ground. Since we are already to February 2 without any snow cover, it is unlikely that we will exceed the 47 day streak. The average is 86 straight days and the average total snow cover days is 101.

The amount of liquid water contained in the snowfall was also well below average in January. St. Cloud only received 0.18 inch, 0.47 inch below average.

The reason for the alternating cold and warm periods are two-fold. First, there have been occasional changes in the steering winds. They have been coming from north central Canada during our colder periods, while there have been a couple of periods with more west-to-east steering winds, which have brought milder air that has descended the eastern slopes of the Rockies. At other times, the draining of the coldest air in north central Canada into the US and southeastern Canada has temporarily used up the supply of the coldest air. Then, other steering winds had to push more Greenland air into north central Canada before it could be ready to move southward. That left even north central Canada without really cold air for a week at a time.

We are definitely beginning February in the colder cycle, but considering the amount of really frigid air right now in Canada, St. Cloud may get off with only being sideswiped by the arctic air, so we likely won't be as cold as during Christmas and New Year's weekends.