January 2026 OBS and Discussion

[SACRUS]

 

Records:

Highs:

EWR: 62 (2018)
NYC: 63 (1874)
LGA: 62 (1967)
JFK: 56 (1967)


Lows:

EWR: -4 (1936)
NYC: -3 (1936)
LGA:  3 (1976)
JFK: 2 (1976)

 

Historical:

 

1780 - The coldest day of the coldest month of record in the northeastern U.S. A British Army thermometer in New York City registered a reading of 16 degrees below zero. During that infamous hard winter the harbor was frozen solid for five weeks, and the port was cut off from sea supply. (David Ludlum)

 

1916: Browning, Montana, saw the temperature plummet 100 degrees in 24 hours on January 23-24, from a relatively mild 44 to a bone-chilling 56 degrees below zero.

 

1969: An F4 tornado cut a 120-mile long path from Jefferson through Copiah, Simpson, Smith, Scott, and Newton Counties in Mississippi, killing 32 and injuring 241 others. Property damage was estimated at $2 million. An inbound Delta Airlines aircraft reported a hook echo on its scope with this storm.

1971 - The temperature at Prospect Creek, AK, plunged to 80 degrees below zero, the coldest reading of record for the United States. (David Ludlum)

 

1971: Alaska, and the US, lowest official temp, -80F (-62.2C), was set at Prospect Creek, a Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline construction camp. Fun fact: the low was initially recorded as -79F but adjusted after thermometer calibration

1987 - Strong winds ushered bitterly cold air into the north central U.S., and produced snow squalls in the Great Lakes Region. Snowfall totals in northwest Lower Michigan ranged up to 17 inches in Leelanau County. Wind chill temperatures reached 70 degrees below zero at Sault Ste Marie MI and Hibbing MN. (National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

1988 - Northeastern Colorado experienced its most severe windstorm in years. A wind gust to 92 mph was recorded at Boulder CO before the anenometer blew away, and in the mountains, a wind gust to 120 mph was reported at Mines Peak. The high winds blew down a partially constructed viaduct east of Boulder, as nine unanchored concrete girders, each weighing forty-five tons, were blown off their supports. (National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

1989 - Low pressure brought heavy snow to Wyoming, with 18 inches reported at the Shoshone National Forest, and 17 inches in the Yellowstone Park area. Gunnison CO, with a low of 19 degrees below zero, was the cold spot in the nation for the twelfth day in a row. (National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

1990 - A Pacific cold front brought strong and gusty winds to the northwestern U.S. Winds in southeastern Idaho gusted to 62 mph at Burley. Strong winds also prevailed along the eastern slopes of the northern and central Rockies. Winds in Wyoming gusted to 74 mph in Goshen County. (National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

[hooralph]

 

Just your average 960 low moving from s of LI to Cape Cod...

[MANDA]

19 minutes ago, hooralph said:

 

Just your average 960 low moving from s of LI to Cape Cod...

Got the Kuchera????  And only 246 hours away.  What are we thinking for ratios?

[Roger Smith]

Looks like March 12, 1888. Good luck with that one. 

[Bxstormwatcher360]

Huge Black spots on the sun with coronal ejections have actually impacted our weather globally. Cold and snow have been wide spread in areas that barely see cold and snow. Also the discussion of the overdue "little ice age" are being heard again. Not saying we are entering a period of global cooling but.. it's a little overdue. 

[lee59]

Temperature dropping fast, down to 24, about 10 degrees in past 2 hours.

[MANDA]

Temperature down to 12 here.  8:40 p.m.

[lee59]

3 minutes ago, MANDA said:

Temperature down to 12 here.  8:40 p.m.

You might hit negative

[SACRUS]

[jm1220]

3 hours ago, hooralph said:

 

Just your average 960 low moving from s of LI to Cape Cod...

20" here and 0 in Montauk. Let's goooo

[Santa Claus]

there is a sinister orange crescent moon setting on the western horizon.  it is a bad omen

[Snowlover11]

14F and dropping, It’s brutal outside.

[WeatherGeek2025]

1 minute ago, Snowlover11 said:

14F and dropping, It’s brutal outside.

gotta be the coldest night of the year because of the wind, i'm sure next week temps wise it'll get colder but it won't be as windy

[Snowlover11]

Just now, WeatherGeek2025 said:

gotta be the coldest night of the year because of the wind, i'm sure next week temps wise it'll get colder but it won't be as windy

Usually the winds cap the actual temps from tanking and we would suffer from the wind chill but the actual temperature is tanking and add on the wind chill its nasty. Could be worse we could be in Minneapolis. -45 to -60 wind chills.

[Volcanic Winter]

3 hours ago, MANDA said:

Got the Kuchera????  And only 246 hours away.  What are we thinking for ratios?

36:3

[MANDA]

10:55 and 5 degrees.

[jm1220]

Down to 15. Brutal.

[SACRUS]

Down to 12 - breezy

[ForestHillWx]

5 here as well; looks like the sub-zero readings are in NePA headed this way. The colds coming in from the northwest, as opposed to due north. 

[NorthShoreWx]

16 hours ago, lee59 said:

I realize everyone is focused on this weekends storm and for good reason, but the cold could be more historic. NYC has a possibility of breaking the longest streak of below 32 temperatures. Also looks like January will be the coldest in at least 10 years.

That would be greater than the streak of 16 days in 1961 (Streak ended during a 17" snowstorm on February 4).  NYC will need to stay <32 through 2/9 to break that record.

Sidenote: from the February 3-4, 1961 storm on the north shore of LI:

https://www.northshorewx.com/19610204.html

Addendum:  The woman in the doorway is my mom.  The girl is my cousin.  Before my time.  Paul Kocin used this photo in a slide show he gave at an old EUSWX conference.

[MJO812]

10 here

[tmagan]

Central Park for the first time in 1084 days has a temperature below ten degrees. Fourth all time longest streak and one day from third all time.

[ForestHillWx]

3 degrees.

Could be hopium on my part, but I tend to think the models aren’t factoring in the extent of this airmass, even at the upper levels; time will tell. 

[EasternLI]

Man oh man. If you're a fan of winter the latest ensemble runs are for you. For your viewing pleasure, here's the entire 00z GEFS loop this time (EPS on the same page btw)... Check out what's going on as we start to move into February. Pay special attention to the TPV and the arctic. Notice how it splits into 2 main lobes with ridging increasingly overspreading the pole? With one of them landing in Hudson Bay stretching into eastern Canada. Back in the beginning of this thread I'd posted the precursor pattern to a Strat Split. Which occurs ~2 weeks prior to said events. Subtle changes in the hemispheric layout over the last week have resulted in a damn good match of that. Happening this weekend. The Sunday event is a part of that and fits right in that look. Then take a look at what is going on higher up in the Strat in about 2 weeks time. Ensembles are increasingly beginning to latch on to the idea of a PV split up above. Again, the EPS is doing this too. That is happening in conjunction with an increasingly -AO in the troposphere and a cold pattern already established. Probably worth mentioning that we currently have an amplified MJO passage through the Pacific in progress as well. On it's way to the Western Hemisphere. Which are correlated to these kinds of events also. Over the years, through reading various different sources on Strat events and ramifications. There was something to look for if you were hoping for it to be beneficial to your locale. That is an already cold pattern prior to and during a split. Which we also do look to have should this go off. So like I was saying yesterday... LFG!

[Roger Smith]

Not far from -40 in n WI and below -40 in n.e. Ontario, in fact below -30 F west of Ottawa. This storm is going to be feeding off an inflow of extremely cold air at least for its first portions. The ratios in the snow first sampled at Dodge City KS look like 19:1 (3.4" from 0.18" liquid). That may drop off a bit as the storm adds Gulf moisture to the Pacific moisture it started with, but that's a good sign for amounts with first portion of the snowfall tomorrow.

[bluewave]

The one of the earliest stratospheric polar vortex disruptions back in late November has been a big player this winter.
 

 

[EasternLI]

2 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The stratosphere has really been driving the pattern to a large degree since late November. 
 

 

Yeah, that event was quite important. In retrospect. 

[gravitylover]

5 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The one of the earliest stratospheric polar vortex disruptions back in late November has been a big player this winter.
 

 

And there's another one coming if this guy is right https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-collapse-stratospheric-warming-february-2026-cold-united-states-canada-europe-fa/  

[bluewave]

11 minutes ago, EasternLI said:

Yeah, that event was quite important. In retrospect. 

 

7 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

And there's another one coming if this guy is right https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-collapse-stratospheric-warming-february-2026-cold-united-states-canada-europe-fa/  

The initial event back in late November was possibly caused by an interaction between the record low Arctic Sea ice and the -QBO.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025JD044403

one model, HadGEM3-GC31-MM, has a statistically significant equatorward shift in vortex latitude, deceleration of vortex winds, and increase in sudden stratospheric warmings. Its response is found to be highly state-dependent, significant only in the easterly phase of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO). Though we cannot comprehensively conclude why models simulate this range of responses, our analysis does highlight areas for consideration in future work to better constrain the stratospheric response to Arctic sea-ice loss. We explore the role of ensemble size, resolution and basic state, including zonal-mean winds in the polar and midlatitude stratosphere and upper troposphere, as well as the QBO.