Alright folks!  It’s the first week of February, that means it is time to throw down the numbers for January and see how they stack up against the forecast for the month.

Here is my blog entry from December 28, 2009 which included the forecast for January.
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January forecast ideas
Posted on 12/28 at 08:51 PM.
The chatter in the weather community over the past two weeks has been the swing to a much colder weather pattern for most of the northern hemisphere beginning the last couple of days of December into at least the first couple of weeks of January.  In fact, some indications are we could be looking at the coldest open to the new year in 20-30 years.

It also looks like the active storm track will continue through this period which could increase snow potential across the southern US since there will be so much cold air around.  Precipitation is expected to be above average, but not as wet as December.

Hopefully we will moderate some by the end of the month, but even that looks like a bit of a stretch at this point.  Most indications are for an extended period of colder than normal weather to continue through the month.

JANUARY FORECAST
TEMPERATURE:  COLDER THAN AVERAGE
PRECIP: WETTER THAN AVERAGE

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Both the temperature and precipitation forecasts verified.  We did well on the first two weeks of January.  It was indeed the coldest stretch of days in 20-30 years, with records being broken both Downtown and at the airport.  We set a new record for the longest stretch of 30 degrees or lower for overnight lows at CHS.  This January had an average temperature of 44.5 degrees.  This is approximately 4 degrees below average.  That makes January 2010 the coldest January since 1988 at the Charleston International Airport and the coldest since 1985 in Downtown.  As far as precip is concerned, we ended the month with 6.46” in the rain gauge which is 2.38” above the monthly average.  There were 4 days when rain totals exceeded 1”.

Moving on to February, it looks like the general idea of colder than average temperatures with above average precipitation is a pretty safe bet once again.  Guidance suggests we will likely stay in the pattern we’ve been in over the past week through next week.  After that there are indications that another extreme outbreak of cold could impact the United States.  It is too early to tell if this outbreak will be as cold relative to average or as long in duration as the one experienced the first two weeks of January.  The active storm track is expected to continue through the rest of the winter which will likely maintain above average precipitation values.

FEBRUARY FORECAST
TEMPERATURE: COLDER THAN AVERAGE (-2.0 to -4.0 F)
PRECIPITATION: ABOVE AVERAGE (+1.5” to +2.5”)