Surprise, January 2017 was one of the warmest ever

KMSP, Minneapolis, MN - After the fourth longest January thaw ever for the Twin Cities and talk of record highs as we head into the weekend, its no surprise that this January has officially been named the third warmest on record. This third place standing for January is for the entire planet, so we were not the only ones enjoying a little extra warmth.

The global image above shows in red that the eastern half of the US was pretty mild and the west coast was a bit cooler. In fact, the constant bombardment of storms onto the west coast is the main reason for that part of the map not being so red. Those storms, areas of low pressure, were also responsible to lowering the jet stream out there which in return raised it to north across the Upper Midwest.

Zooming in closer to home we don’t see much difference, January was warmer than average. The graphic below shows in orange that we spent many days of the month above average.  When it was all said and done, the average temperature for the month was 5.3° above the monthly average.

Now we head to another big thaw and this time we are talking not only about being above freezing but possible record highs. This kind of makes you wonder what March has in store for us. Stay tuned everyone.