January 2017 Summary

A cold and wet January

The start of the month was very cold, as well as some days in the low minus 20s, we had a streak of 12 days (going back into 2017) where the temperature never went above -8°C.  This is the second longest streak like this, only surpassed by 1961 when there were 15 and just a little longer than in 1979 when we had 11.

We then experienced many temperature oscillations with a few days above zero, followed by a few below, and so on.  In fact the temperature passed through zero a total of 6 times leading to some mixed precipitation making for some difficult driving and walking conditions.

However, the warmer temperatures couldn’t make up for those really cold temperatures at the beginning of the month leading to an overall temperature that was a little more than a degree below average.

The total precipitation that fell was 73.3 mm, enough above the average of the 65.2 mm to put it into the above average range.  As far as snowfall, we had 28 cm less than the average of 43.7 cm for the month, while the total so far this season is 66 cm compared to the average of 95.3 cm for this point in the snowfall season.


Summary for January 2018:
Maximum Temperature 11.3°C
Minimum Temperature -28.6°C
Average Daily High Temperature -2.7°C (Long term average -2.6°C)
Average Daily Low Temperature -12.5°C (Long term average -10.3°C)
Total Precipitation 73.3 mm (Long term average 65.2 mm)

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