Phoenix down to the wire for record dry streak and U.S. snow cover craters

After a lion of a January for all kinds of weather and related climate news, the month is mostly going out like a lamb that is causing snow to melt. Any respite in boisterous conditions is probably short lived as a stormier pattern is set to return to the western U.S. and spring begins to emerge in the southern tier.

Weather Watch

Phoenix rain? It has been 158 days without measurable rain in the Valley of the Sun as of Monday. A record of 160 consecutive days — set in 1972 — right around the corner, light rain was reported during the pre-dawn Tuesday. But so far, it has only led to a trace, or raindrops that are not measurable. The city continues to see a chance of showers Tuesday and Wednesday as the same storm system which brought rain to Southern California this past weekend moseys by.

U.S. pattern shift. Mentioned here briefly last week, a realignment of the weather pattern seen over the past month is ongoing. Stormier conditions are on the way for some, particularly the Pacific Northwest, as warmer air takes over the South and Southeast heading into early February. For now, it looks like a resumption of December’s tendency for storms to skip drought-plagued southern California and the Southwest while delivering heavy precipitation mainly to a zone from San Francisco and northward.

Lightning links

Beach huts are brutally washed away during Storm Herminia in Britain.

You may have heard of iguanas falling from trees when it’s cold in Florida, but have you seen it?

Trending Tuesday

We’re over the average hump of peak winter in a majority of locations across the northern hemisphere. This may also be true when it comes to snow cover for the Lower 48 this season.

In my attempt to gather all the data — not a bad idea as some is disappearing from public in the first days of the new administration — I recently wrote a script to crawl the NWS snow cover stats page for the contiguous United States.

A quick examination offers several key takeaways:

• The 2024-2025 snow cover season was near normal through the start of December.

• Percentages flatlined to close 2024, falling near or briefly below record for lowest late month.

• January cold carried snow cover to a seasonal peak of 56 percent on the 11th.

• Numbers are now back nearer the low end to date following a bit of a thaw to close the month.

Although the smoothed daily average snow cover only gets a bit above 40 percent at peak, the average maximum day over the past 20 winters has 60 percent coverage. The average date that occurs is January 19.

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Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster that connects weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

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