(Radio Iowa/KJAN) – January is usually the coldest and driest month of the year, but State Climatologist Justin Glisan says the numbers went against the averages this year. “Little over 24 degrees is the average temperature for the state and that’s about five degrees above average so top 30 warmest Januarys on record,” he says.

KJAN weather records for the month of January in Atlantic, show that we were on average, 4-degrees warmer than normal, 8-degrees warmer on the Low side of the thermometer, and thanks to rainfall and four days of snowfall, we ended-up slightly more than six-tenths of an inch wetter than normal. The Average High for Jan. 2023 in Atlantic was 33.6 degrees (the norm is 29.4). The Low averaged out to 15.5degrees (9.3 is the norm), and we received 1.47-inches of precipitation (rain/melted frozen precip.). We would normally be much drier, at .84-inches. Snowfall amounted to 1.9 inches. The warmest day was January 10th (49-degrees). The coldest day (24-hour Low) was Jan. 30th, at -5 degrees. The snowiest day was January 27th (.8″).

Justin Glisan says January in Iowa saw more rain and snow than normal. “We’re about an inch above average — we came in at just under two inches of precipitation snowfall in any rainfall that fell — and preliminarily in the top 10 wettest Januarys on record.”He says half the state saw more snowfall than normal. “As January is the driest month it doesn’t take a lot to be above average, but definitely above average snowpack across the northern half of the state anywhere from five to 10 inches above average. You look at southern Iowa in a snow drought so below average snowfall for that portion of the state,” Glisan says.

The severe weather in January was not limited to snow and blizzards, as two tornadoes touched down in eastern Iowa. “Very weak tornadoes, E-F-zero, E-F-one, on the ground for 10 minutes five mile track. Some damage along that path, but nothing catastrophic,” he says. The tornadoes were rare and record-breaking. “The earliest calendar day tornado for the state of Iowa. So we broke a record there. And it was these were the first tornadoes that we’ve seen across the state since January 24 1967, when we saw 13 tornadoes in eastern Iowa, which was a part of a larger tornado outbreak across Missouri, Illinois and Iowa,” Glisan says.

Glisan says the early short-term outlook for February is slightly warmer and wetter.