It has to get warmer

  I hurried to my car today. That seemed like a good idea, since the temperature was zero, with a wind chill reading of 19 degrees below zero. A least there were no mosquitoes!

  Cold days in January make an impression.  We remember the cold snap of January 20 through January 24 more than the mild temps of January 7 through January 11.  We had more mild days than cold days, so our average monthly temperature for January 2013 was 1.3 degrees above normal. If you want to check out official Twin Cities weather stats, you can always go to Twin Cities.

  We’ll see a chilly start to February, but temps will recover. Looking ahead, the February outlook from the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service doesn’t show a tendency toward either warmth or extreme chill:

   The outlook map shows Minnesota with equal chances of above normal or below normal temperatures when you tally up the entire month. Near normal would be OK….our average high temp warms from 25 to 34 degrees as we go through February.

 

    I’m on Twitter: @RonTrenda and LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rontrenda 

  

A cold high

   I went to start up my car today, and it didn’t turn over right away. I should have expected a balky engine, since it was 6 degrees below zero at the time. We had an afternoon high temperature in the Twin Cities of 3 degrees below zero, with a high for the calendar day of 2 below zero, shortly after midnight.

   Today was the first day in over four years with a below-zero high temperature in the Twin Cities. Our streak of 1,466 days with a high of zero or warmer set a new record, breaking the old record by 324 days! Details on our longest stretches with highs of zero degrees or warmer can be found at Streak . 

   I’m on Twitter: @RonTrenda and LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rontrenda

  

January tee time

   I was golfing one year ago today…in the Twin Cities!   We hit a record high of 52 degrees on January 10, 2012, and several golf courses opened for the day.  This unusual January scene was captured at Braemar Executive Golf Course:  

   Temperatures cooled off drastically a couple of days later, but we were still able to log the eighth warmest January in Twin Cities history. Warm weather was common last year...October was the only month of 2012 that was cooler than normal. 2012 finished in a tie with 1931 as the warmest year in Twin Cities history.  

   Details on our warm 2012, courtesy of the Minnesota State Climatology Office, can be found at Warm2012 .

I’m on Twitter: @RonTrenda and LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rontrenda