Part Of Vermont Had The Coldest January In 13 Years,

One of many mostly clear, cold sunsets in Vermont this
January. This view is from New Haven, Vermont this past
Sunday. Air flowing over the Adirondacks created
the lenticular clouds visible in the photo. 

If you thought this January was cold, you were right. Especially if you live in northwestern Vermont and northern New York.  

At least in northwest Vermont, January was the coldest month since February, 2015 and the coldest January since 2009.  Still, in the grand scheme of things, it could have been worse. Much worse. 

The National Weather Service office in South Burlington says this January was only the 32nd coldest on record for Burlington.  Those records date back about 140 years. 

Burlington's coldest January was in 1970, when the mean temperature was 3.6 Burlington endured 24 mornings at or below zero that month.  Those subzero mornings in 1970 were tougher to take than this year. In 1970, eleven of those subzero mornings were at minus 15 or colder. The coldest January morning this year was minus 14.   

 The North Country had a steep and unusual northwest to southeast gradient between an especially cold month in northern New York to a relatively average one, at least in terms of temperature in southeastern New England. 

NWS Burlington said January in Massena, in the northwest corner of New York, was the fifth coldest January and 8th coldest of any month on record with a mean temperature of just 6.0 degrees. (CHECK) That's 9.6 degrees below normal.

Massena's cold in the second half of the month was brutal.  Fifteen of the final 17 days of the month were at or under 12 below and eight of those were 20 below or colder. 

Once you crossed Vermont's Champlain Valley and reached the Green Mountains, we found a strong warming trend, even though it was still chilly.  

Burlington's January mean temperature of 14.0 degrees or 6.9 degrees below normal.  (Note this is the "new normal" established last year, which is warmer than what used to be considered normal for January).

Montpelier is normally chillier than Burlington, but this January came out to be the same as Burlington with a mean temperature of 14.0 degrees. Montpelier was a mere 2.6 degrees chiller than average. 

 Daytimes were closer to normal than the nights were. Daytime highs were about 4 degrees below normal during January in Burlington but overnight lows were 9.6 degrees chillier than average.

In Montpelier, daytime highs were exactly average for the month but nights were more than five degrees on the cold side.

January, 1970 was dubbed by some as the "continental month." The interior of North America, places like the Northern Plains of the U.S. and the plains of central Canada, are notoriously both cold and dry in January.  Which was exactly like January, 1970 was in Vermont. 

This January was also a "continental month'" as it was quite dry statewide. The Arctic air from Canada kept shoving moisture laden storms well to our south and east, leaving with us mostly with piddling moisture-starved cold fronts coming through with just light handfuls of snow.  

Burlington managed just 0.94 inches of melted precipitation in January, which was about 1.2 inches below average. Montpelier had just about the same amount of precipitation.  St. Johnsbury was even drier with just 0.76 inches.

As has been the case most of the time for more than two years now, southern Vermont was a bit wetter but still kind of parched. Rutland had 1.42 inches of precipitation, a little more than half their normal.

The outlook for February is, as always, uncertain.  Early indications are it won't be as consistently cold as January was, but we'll still have our share of frigid nights here and there. 

In the short term, parts of Vermont at least face heavy precipitation this week, but we don't know if it will encompass the entire state, or just the south again.  

We've passed midwinter, so February, if it's remotely in the ballpark of normal, would start a slow warming trend toward spring. 

In Burlington, the normal high and low temperature today, February 1 are 29 and 12.  By the last name of the month, the normal high and low are a bit better at 35 and 18.  Again, these are the newly minted normals.  "Normal" in February used to be colder than that.

Daylight during the month increases nicely as well. We're past the darkest days of winter now. Daylight lasts nine hours and 53 minutes today and that will increase to 11 hours and 7 minutes by the last day of the month.