By many accounts, winter seemed to stay mostly offstage in January. Rain was the star event, with warmer temperatures in the East having played a supporting role. Except for California: Parts of the Golden State saw more than 15 feet of snow, while mountain areas of the interior West, such as Colorado, Nevada and Utah, experienced higher-than-normal snowfall overall.
By many accounts, winter seemed to stay mostly offstage in January. Rain was the star event, with warmer temperatures in the East having played a supporting role. Except for California: Parts of the Golden State saw more than 15 feet of snow, while mountain areas of the interior West, such as Colorado, Nevada and Utah, experienced higher-than-normal snowfall overall.
Last month, the average contiguous U.S. temperature was 33.6 degrees F, 3.5 degrees above the 20th-century average. January 2017 ranked as the 18th warmest January in the 123-year period of record, according to scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Most locations from the Rockies to the East Coast were warmer than average with 24 states across the Southeast, Midwest and Northeast much warmer than average. The Northwest and Northern Rockies proved cooler than average.
The average precipitation total for January was 3.18 inches, 0.87 inch above the 20th-century average — making it the ninth wettest January on record and the wettest since 1998. Large areas of the contiguous U.S. were wetter than average in January, and much above-average precipitation was observed across the Southwest, Southern Plains, Midwest and Southeast.
Continue reading at NOAA.
Photo via NOAA.
