D.C.’s Cold and Snowy January

 

Photo Credit: Lee Laudicina

D.C. Area winter weather enthusiasts have had a lot to cheer about since January 2022 has become D.C.’s snowiest month in six years.  This month will also finish nearly 3° colder than average.  The combination of snow and below average temperatures brought an end to two noteworthy weather streaks in Washington, D.C.

Last winter, NOAA updated its daily and monthly temperature and precipitation averages to reflect the 30-year period of 1991-2020 rather than 1981-2010.  D.C.’s current average January temperature is warmer than it used to be since the 2010s were a warmer decade than the 1980s were.  This month has had 20 days that were colder than average.  D.C.’s average monthly temperature through January 30 is 34.7° (combining daily high and low temperatures) which is 2.7° below average.

Washingtonians had a nearly three-year streak since the last time temperatures were colder than 22° at January’s onset.  Before this month, the last time the temperature fell below 22° at Reagan National Airport was on February 2, 2019 (18°).  However, D.C. has now had six days that low temperatures were below 22°, including four days in the teens, since January 15.  To add to that, D.C.’s second nearly three-year streak without a high temperature in the 20s ended on January 21.  D.C.’s high of 27° on January 21 was D.C.’s first high temperature in the 20s since February 1, 2019 (24°).

This month’s average temperature of 34.7° is comparable to D.C.’s January 2016 average of 34.9°.  Since both January’s followed unusually warm December’s, the cold felt particularly sharp.  December 2021 was D.C.’s second warmest on record, behind only December 2015. 

D.C.’s monthly snowfall total of 12.3” is over 7.0” above average, making January 2022 the snowiest month in the Nation’s Capital since January 2016.  D.C.’s combined snow total for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 winters is 6.0”.  So, January 2022 had more snow in Washington, D.C. than the last two winters combined. With a rainfall total (including liquid snowfall equivalent) of 3.68”, January 2022 was a wetter than average month overall.

January 2022 is poised to become only the third in the last decade that January will finish as a colder and snowier than average month.  NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center expects February to be a warmer than average month in the D.C. Metro Area with near average precipitation.