January 2023

A very warm January with little sun

With only a couple of days that were colder than average, it is not surprising that the month overall was 4.5 degrees above average.  This made it the fourth warmest January in the history of weather records in the region which go back over 100 years.  The last warmer one was in 2006 and then you have to go all the way back to 1932 and 1933.

Coming off a very dry year overall, it is sort of notable that the first month of this year was even just an average month for precipitation.  The total of 68.4 mm was only a bit above the average of 65.2 mm.

In the first 20 days of January we only had 4.0 cm of snow at the UW Weather Station, this is the lowest for the beginning of January since 1957.  The 17.5 cm that fell on the 26th helped put the total snowfall for the month at 35.0 cm, which is less than the average of 43.7 cm.  Overall for the snowfall season we have had 75.0 cm, below the average of 95.3 cm for this point in the season.

And one last thing, a topic of conversation last month was how cloudy and gloomy it was, particularly to start the month.  Some people didn’t think we would ever see the sun again.  This is something that is hard to quantify, but choosing an arbitrary value for incoming solar radiation, let’s call it a dreary day when it doesn’t go above 400 Watts per square metre.  This year there were 23 dreary days this January, since the UW weather station was established in 1998 (hey isn’t that 25 years ago?) this is the highest number for that month (2011 is second with 18). 

Summary for January 2023:

Maximum Temperature 4.4°C

Minimum Temperature -17.9°C

Average Daily High Temperature 0.6°C (Long term average -2.6°C)

Average Daily Low Temperature -4.5°C (Long term average -10.3°C)

Total Precipitation 68.4 mm (Long term average 65.2 mm)

(Long term averages based on 1981-2010 data for the Waterloo-Wellington Airport)