January closes having failed to produce 0° in the city
January 2005, which ended at midnight last night, failed to produce a single official 0° reading. Only 30 other Januarys in the city over the past 135 years have done that! Despite the month’s 29.1” of snow at Midway Airport, the fourth heaviest there since observations began in 1928, the month’s 24.5° average temperature finished 2.5° above normal.
The Midwest’s access to frigid arctic air has been severed for the time being by a shift in the jet stream pattern across North America. Gone are the northwest steering winds responsible for the chill of recent weeks. Two westerly jet streams are now in place—one over the Gulf, the other in southern Canada—each bypassing Chicago and Midwest. It’s a pattern which is to allow a sprawling high pressure to sit over the region the remainder of the week.
Kansas City was hit by snow early Monday—up to 10” of it in that city’s southern suburbs. The eastbound disturbance dissipated before reaching Chicago.