Ithaca Climate Summary for January 2003

Temperature

• With an average temperature of 17.0 degrees, the month averaged 5.6 degrees cooler than normal.
• The first ten days of the month averaged 4.2 degrees warmer than normal. The last nineteen days of the month, however, averaged nearly 11 degrees colder than normal.
• This was the fourth cooler-than-normal month in a row.
• This January was 14 degrees cooler than January 2002.
• This was the second coldest January in the last 21 years (January 1994 was colder at 13.8 degrees).
• The warmest temperature of the month was 40 degrees on the 9th.
• The coldest temperature of the month was -13 degrees on the 27th. The last time it was colder was January 7, 1996 (-16 degrees).
• There were 21 consecutive days this month when the temperature never rose above freezing (11th through 31st). This was the longest frozen stretch since the record of 27 straight days in Jan-Feb 1985.
• Ten days this month had low temperatures below 0 degrees. The last month with this many sub-zero days was January 1994. The most on record for any month is 13 in January 1979.

Precipitation

• The January precipitation total was 2.70 inches, which represented 127% of normal.
• Four of the last five months have been wetter than normal.

Snowfall

• Total snowfall for the month was 30 inches, 12.1 inches above normal.
• This was 20.1 inches more than last January, but less than two recent Januarys (2000 - 31 inches and 1994 - 31.8 inches).
• Total snowfall for the season totaled 67 inches at month's end, 28.8 inches more than normal through the end of January and just 1.2 inches shy of the normal for the entire season.
• On January 3rd-4th, 14.5 inches of snow fell. This was the greatest 2-day event since 20 inches on March 3-4, 1994.
• There has been at least an inch of snow on the ground every day since December 25th.
• The greatest depth of snow on the ground was 15 inches on the 7th.