January In Vermont: Another Warm, Dry Month

A gloomy, foggy day, St. Albans, Vermont, January, 2021.
Despite a lack of sun, January in Vermont was both
warmer and drier than normal.

With all the excitement from the snowstorm we've had, I didn't get a chance to summarize Vermont's January. 

Following the trend of pretty much all of 2020, the new year started with a warm, dry month once again. 

The mean temperature in Burlington for January was 24.3 degrees. That was by no means anywhere close to the warmest first month of the year on record, but it was still 4.3 degrees on the warm side. 

Precipitation was a little on the light side, too, coming in at 1.72 inches, or about a third of an inch drier than normal.

Despite the lack of precipitation, it was a murky January, with long bouts of overcast skies, sometimes made more bleak by fog and haze.  I'd informally rate 21 of the 31 days of January as overcast around where I live in northwestern Vermont. 

Other places in Vermont were even drier, relative to average. Montpelier came in a half inch shy of normal. Springfield was dry by more than three quarters of an inch. St. Johnsbury and Morrisville were an inch below normal. 

The warmth I mentioned was statewide. All areas were between about two and four degrees warmer than average.

Despite the warmth, we never got a real January thaw. The mild weather was consistent, but never extreme. The warmest Burlington got all month was 39 degrees..  Montpelier barely made it above freezing all month, reaching a peak of 34 degrees on three days during January. Probably the balmiest spot in northern Vermont was St. Johnsbury, which reached 40 degrees.

The only real cold spell of the month did manage to bring some subzero readings to most of Vermont, but nothing that unusual for January. 

Montpelier managed to reach -15 degrees and St. Johnsbury got to 13 below.

As mentioned the other day,  most of Vermont is still either abnormally dry or in a drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.  The relatively light precipitation I mentioned in January didn't really help matters. 

That snow we received as February opened will help a little, but only a little. Melt that snow down and you get only about 0.25 to 0.75 of an inch of equivalent rain. Nice, but nothing earth shattering.  It seems like more than it is because of the fluffy nature of the snow through much of the storm.

Some freezing drizzle mixed in for some areas Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, so the snow did feel heavier when I shoveled up in St. Albans today. 

More snow broke out over northern Vermont in the late afternoon, but accumulations will be a dusting to two inches for most of us. 

There will be several chances for snow in the next week as we get further into February.  Unless there's a surprise thrown in, the precipitation will be on the light side. Long range forecasts call for below normal precipitation through the middle of February around here.