The first month of 2023 is now officially over, and we ended on a cold note with high temperatures holding in the single digits. It was not the temperatures which were the main feature of January, but the snow (or lack thereof). In this blog post, I break down where the snow for January went, give stats to the month, and what to look forward to in February!
WHERE HAS THE SNOW BEEN?
Officially, Eppley Airfield had only received 2.8" of snow for the month of January. This sits well below our average snowfall for the month at 7.2". Much of that snow fell on January 18-19 with our winter storm, but that was not enough to fill the deficient. So, where was the snow?
The snow was very, very close to the area. In fact, January was very snowy for many across Nebraska. Take Norfolk, which experienced 15.7" of snowfall in January! This makes it the 8th snowiest on record for the city since the 1890s! To compare, last month Norfolk only saw 1.1" of snow, so this year they got 15x as much.
Things got even snowier in central Nebraska, with many locations exceeding 2' and a few reaching the 3' threshold. Many locations broke their all-time snowiest January's on record. So, the snow was there, just not in the Omaha metro.
JANUARY: A WET MONTH
That does not mean January was a dry month in Omaha, far from it, we were well above average for precipitation for January. Much of it fell with two rain events at the beginning and middle of the month. Much of this is rainfall, but we saw some of this moisture fall from snow.
How will this improve the drought? It is certainly much-needed moisture, but it is too little to put any significant dent in the drought in eastern Nebraska. Although there were improvements to the drought in central Nebraska, where the more snowfall certainly helped.
Iowa held onto the same drought as the beginning of the year, with little changes for better or worse.
THE TEMPERATURES
Now onto the temperatures, overall, January was a warmer month than average. We started the year quite warm for this time of year but ended the year on a cold note. The temperatures for the month of January were on the warm side, with 2 degrees greater than average for the month.
SNEAK PEAK AT FEBRUARY
As we head into February, immediately in the short term is the warm temperatures into the weekend with highs into the 40s! This will be a warm start to a month which could trend to near average in terms of temperatures. This means to expect some warmer days and some colder days, but its February in Nebraska so this is not out of the ordinary.
In regard to snowfall, February is just slightly snowier than January at 7.8" on average. According to the Climate Prediction Center (CPC), Omaha could expect average precipitation amounts. What this means is the average for moisture, not particularly snowfall. It will depend on when storm systems move through and how much cold air they have to work with.
