Frigid To Normal To Frigid Again?

A warm sun broke out late Tuesday afternoon in St. Albans,
Vermont after another day long, rainy thaw. Warm weather
over the past couple of weeks has made January's temperatures
near normal so far, despite a deeply frigid first week. 

Here's how topsy-turvy the weather has been in the eastern United States, including here in Vermont.

When the first week of January ended, after a long spell of record and near-record cold, it looked like January would end up being among the coldest months in recent decades.

Now, not so much.

The first week of January in Burlington, Vermont was a full 16 degrees colder than normal. It would be awfully hard to make up for that temperature deficit for the other three weeks of the month, right?

Nah.

As of yesterday, January in Burlington was averaging exactly normal. Of course, we don't know if the month will ultimately be a little warmer, or a little cooler than normal. During the next week, we will get spells of Arctic chill interspersed with more thaws, so where we'll stand at the very end of the month is anybody's guess.

But January will average close to normal, even if few individual days during the month were anywhere near normal.

Cities further south along the Atlantic Seaboard are still recording Januaries that are at this point a couple degrees cooler than normal, weighed down by that frigid first week. But the relative warmth is expected to remain a bit more consistent from New York City south for the rest of the month, so temperatures in those cities will probably end up close to normal for January, too.

You'd better not be thinking winter is over. It's not.  Not by a long shot. I usually don't put too much weight on long range forecasts, but the current long range forecasts for the month of February are remarkably consistent. Most models indicate a weather pattern that is at least similar to that which froze our butts off in late December and early January.

It's too soon to get into specifics, but we might end up having another long, frigid spell of well below normal temperatures after the first week of February, possibly continuing into March.

We'll see how that works out. But hey, even if it gets really cold, the days are getting longer, so that's a plus.

Back here in Vermont, it's been a relatively stormy month, too. At Burlington, snowfall is a bit behind normal so far for the month, but overall preciptation is running an inch ahead of normal at this point. (We've had a lot of storms with rain and mixed precipitation, which cut down on the snow.)

Long range forecasts call for up to an inch of additional rain or melted precipitation before January closes.