Jan. 2015: More bearable than Jan. 2014

SOUTH BEND, IN - Ringing in the new year, it's that time that we can turn a new page and start fresh.  However, everyone was wondering if this January would be a recurring frigid, snowy nightmare like January 2014.  Now that January 2015 has come and went, it's time to take a look back and compare.

According to the National Weather Service of Northern Indiana's Monthly/Climate Data, the average temperature for January 2015 was 22.5°, which was just 1.9° below the normal monthly temperature.  Even though we did see six days where lows dipped below zero (Fig. 1), January 2015 was still warmer than January 2014.  Believe it or not, January 2014's average temperature did not even make it out of the teens!  With nearly 10 days of lows below zero and 21 days of highs below freezing (Fig. 1), the average temperature was just 16.3°.

Now that temperature has been sorted out, let's compare monthly snowfall totals. According to Fig. 2, the first half of January this year was off to a snowy start, topping out at 20.4", nearly two inches more than 2014.  Then, the second half of January 2014 came back with vengeance, dumping 28.3", bumping up the monthly total to 46.6".  A lull in the snowfall for the second half of January 2015 stripped it of it's snowy lead and led to a monthly total of 22.1".  Therefore, January 2015 goes down in the record books as more bearable than the frigid nightmare of 2014.