Winter weirding: Unusual records continue to fall this winter season

We’re rewriting some unusual weather records in the 2023-24 cold season.

It probably won’t surprise you that last month was the cloudiest January on record for the Twin Cities and much of Minnesota. The solar sensor at the University of Minnesota St. Paul Campus recorded the least solar energy since records began in 1963. You can see the data on the chart above.

Twenty-eight days in January were recorded as partly cloudy to cloudy at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. We had just three sunny days in January.

That‘s unusual because January typically brings bitterly cold and dry arctic air masses. These air masses are cold, but typically dry and sunny.

Not this year.

Our mild and moist Pacific flow kept plenty of cloud cover overhead last month.

Here’s more on our unusual January from the Minnesota State Climatology Office.

The strange and winterless winter continued into January of 2024, which started warm, ended even warmer, and had a middle 10-day period with the only winter-like weather since December 1st. It was dry, and nearly snowless in many areas, although our brief, wintry interlude did bring a couple snowfall events to parts of the state. January was also the least-sunny on record, with less solar radiation observed in St. Paul than any winter since 1963.

The warmth at the beginning of the month was a subdued extension of the extreme warmth that had dominated December. But the first third or so of January was just mild; it was not spectacularly warm. A series of cold fronts and low-pressure systems brought much colder air into Minnesota. Snow had fallen across the far south, and that's where some of the coldest air set up, both in absolute terms, and especially compared to "normal." During the middle of the month, many areas stayed below zero for days; this is not unusual at all for January, but was unusual for this winter, which had lacked anything resembling cold weather up to this point.

The cold air lasted until the 21st or so, and the final nine or 10 days of the month were very warm, with another heat wave overspreading the state on the 31st. During the final days of January, stations across the state experienced daily low temperatures that were well above the average high temperatures for the date.

Unprecedented snowfall patterns

We’ve also seen unprecedented snowfall distribution by month this winter. My colleague Ron Trenda dug up a few interesting stats.

This is the first winter season going back to 1884 when October snowfall has been higher than November, December and January.

We’re still on pace for the least snowy winter season on record for the Twin Cities with a paltry 7.3 inches of snowfall so far.

More records this week

Get ready for more record warmth this week. Here are the record highs in the Twin Cities:

• Tuesday, 51 degrees (1925)

• Wednesday, 53 degrees (1987)

• Thursday, 50 degrees (2002)

We have a shot to tie or break records each day between Tuesday and Thursday in the Twin Cities and much of Minnesota.