Sunshine was rare in January. I got this pic. (above) yesterday (Tue. 1/31/23) out my backdoor. We had just 10.6% of possible sunshine in January. There were 19 days with no sunshine and another 7 days with 1% to 5% sunshine. There were only 5 days that had more than 5% sunshine and only one day with more than 60% sunshine (and that day was cloudier in the lakeshore counties.
This was sunset yesterday (1/31 – Tuesday) at the Chicago Water Intake (Dever Crib). You can see a decent amount of ice has formed here in the last few days. Yesterday, the weather station at the Water Intake had a high temperature of 14° and a low temperature of 8°.
Combine the 10.6 % sunshine in January with the 12% sunshine we had in December and we’ve had 11% sunshine since November 29th.
This was Kollen Park in Holland Tuesday PM. Note the new ice on Lake Macatawa. Careful out there – the ice is going to have thin and weak spots. I see the water temperature sensor is not working on Reeds Lake – so I assume that now has an ice cover as well.
January was 6.9 degrees warmer than average. The warmest temperature was 47° on the 11th and the coldest was +2° on the 31st. Since January 2022 was 4.6° colder than average, that means that this January was 11.5° warmer than January last year.
Here’s a pic. from the GLERL camera at the lighthouse at Michigan City IN Tuesday afternoon. You can see it’s clear to the west toward Illinois. Lake-effect clouds form over the lake and move east into West Michigan. Now…make the picture as big as you can make it and look right along the water/sky boundary…a little left of center…it’s real small, but you can make out some of the tall buildings in downtown Chicago – about 40 miles away.
Here’s the Thunder Bay Lighthouse near Alpena Tuesday PM. The wind was offshore, so skies were partly sunny and waves were small. There is ice forming at the shore.
Precipitation (rain and melted snow) totaled 2.54″ and that was just 0.02″ above average. From the 7th to the 15th, we had 9 consecutive days without measurable precipitation (a long stretch for January in Michigan) and then 15 of the last 16 days of the month did have measurable precipitation.
Here’s Alpena, Michigan Tuesday afternoon. Skies were clear overhead with some lake-effect clouds on the western horizon. There is quite a big of ice on the (Thunder Bay) river. Alpena had a low temp. of -9° Tuesday morning. Leota in Clare Co. made it town to -17°.
Snowfall in January totaled 13.5″. From Jan. 1-21, we had less than an inch of snow (0.7″). Then from Jan 22-30 we had 12.7″ of snow with measurable snow each day during that stretch. This is at the Ford Airport, the official reporting station for Grand Rapids.
Here’s the Lake Michigan satellite picture from Tuesday PM. You can see the lake-effect clouds forming over the lake and coming east into Lower Michigan. It’s mostly sunny in Wisconsin with a couple streaks of high clouds down toward Chicago. Note the ice forming along the shore in Wisconsin and Illinois. It looks like there was still a bit of open water on deep Green Lake in Wisconsin, but much bigger and much shallower Lake Winnebago is frozen over.
The average wind speed in Grand Rapids in January was 9.2 mph with a peak gust of 40 mph on the 19th. There was no lightning, thunder or freezing rain during the month.
Freezing rain causing travel problems and some power outages in Texas, Arkansas up into Tennessee.
As of 5:30 am Wed., there were 119,200 customers without power in Texas and 10,856 in Arkansas. NWS Fort Worth reports, “Travel conditions will continue to worsen as additional sleet and freezing rain deteriorates roads areawide. Travel should be avoided if possible now through Wednesday. Stay home! Storm summary.
Central Park in New York City recorded 0.4 of an inch of snow this Wednesday morning. This is the latest first measurable snow, breaking the record of Jan. 29, 1973. Pretty sunset in Finland. Sunset at Oceanside CA.
ALSO: Snow clings to the trees west of Berlin, Germany. Moonrise at Roker Lighthouse. Animals go missing from the zoo. First snow of the season in Philadelphia. Nice rainbow in England. 137 degree temperature difference across the U.S. on Tuesday. Immokalee, Florida, soared to 90 degrees, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming plummeted to a morning low of 47 below zero. -32°F in California this morning at Bridgeport Valley in the Eastern Sierra. Explosion! Lunar Halo. Comet ZTF is at its closest to Earth. 42,490,414km. Now heading away. Won’t be seen this near for another 50,000 years. 1,000 torches in a 50 mph wind?
