January 2020 Cloudiest On Record

It it seemed to you that we had a lot of cloudy days in January you were not imagining it! January 2020 was the cloudiest January on record according to Tom Hoverstad who is a scientist at the Southern Research and Outreach Center at Waseca (SROC). Tom keeps track of the weather data at their official weather station. Solar radiation in January was only 2/3 of normal.

Tom said they have official weather records for more than 100 years at SROC. They did not begin to record solar radiation until the early 1970's. So in January 2020 we received the least solar radiation since then! Snowfall and total precipitation in January and so far this winter is very close to normal. Other than putting up with very little sunshine it has been a pretty nice winter, so far!

Here is the best part of January 2020 which made it easier to put up with little sunshine. January was 4.8 degrees warmer than normal! Maybe it was payback or Mother Nature feeling guilty for the miserable cold and snowy November we endured trying to finish corn harvest and fall fieldwork!