January 2020 St. Cloud Weather Summary

The fast start to the snow season continued in January. St. Cloud picked up another 14.0 inches of snow in January, running the seasonal total to 37.5 inches. That total is 10.0 inches higher than the average snowfall through the end of January. There was no large single storm of snowfall, but 11.4 inches fell between January 12 and 20. There was a heavier snowfall in northwestern Minnesota during January 17 and 18. In addition, wind gusts of 45-60 MPH produced a white out across much of the eastern Dakotas and the Red River Valley.

The continued snow continued the snow pack through the month of January with at least 10 inches of snow on the ground through the last 2 weeks of January.

The second most notable part of January weather was the persistent cloudiness, even when snow wasn't falling. Skies were completely cloudy on 16 of the 31 January days, including January 22 through 31. Similar conditions led to the cloudiest January in 57 years at the St. Paul Observatory at the University of Minnesota. The persistent cloudiness was mainly caused by having multiple storm tracks across North America. Each of those tracks produced frequent storms, and the northern one produced the 11 days with measurable snowfall. However, because of the multiple storm tracks, our air was frequently coming from areas that had recent precipitation, so there was a lot of lingering humidity in the air. That led to stubborn low clouds for much of the month.

Average temperatures were 15.9 degrees, 4.3 degrees above average. The month did have two periods of below zero temperatures: January 7-11 with 4 lows below zero, and January 15-20 with 6 lows below zero and one day (January 16) that the temperature didn't top zero. These were surrounded by milder weather. The persistent cloudiness did push the average low to 8.5 degrees, 6.7 degrees milder than average. The average high was only 2.0 degrees milder than average.