REGIONAL— This week’s cold snap was, for the most part, a return to normal for late January in the North Country after an exceptionally mild and remarkably gloomy January.
Consistent, deep cloud cover actually contributed to the mild weather by trapping heat in the overnight hours. “Some of the overnight lows were incredible,” said state climatologist Pete Boulay.
Citing data from International Falls, Boulay noted that the border city went ten days, from Jan.10-Jan. 20 in which the coldest overnight temperature was a balmy ten degrees above zero. “On five of those nights, our overnight low was in the 20s,” Boulay added.
By comparison, the average overnight low in the Falls in mid-late January is seven degrees below zero, which means overnight temperatures during that stretch ranged from 17 to as much as 35 degrees above average.
For the month, considering both highs and lows, the month ended with an average temperature of 13 degrees, putting it in the top ten mildest Januarys on record in International Falls, which has one of the longest periods of record in the region.
The cold snap that hit the area this past weekend affected this January’s ranking for mildest.
“If the month ended on Jan. 27, it would have been the second warmest on record,” said Boulay. Even with the past several days of chilly temps, January 2023 will lodge in the history books as the eighth warmest.
It may also have been the cloudiest, at least in the past 60 years. Boulay notes that the solar instrument at the St. Paul-Minneapolis airport clocked the lowest amount of solar radiation since its installation way back in 1963 through the 27th. “It was a gloomy month, that’s for sure,” said Boulay.
January’s mild temperatures have helped push the overall temperature average at most northern St. Louis County reporting stations to above average for the winter, running anywhere from 2.7 degrees in Tower to 4.7 degrees at a station located 25 miles east of Ely.
While January was mild, Boulay said a recent poll of Minnesotans revealed that most said they preferred cold and sunny winter weather to mild and cloudy. “That’s as long as there isn’t wind,” added Boulay.