Summary of January 2025 Weather

Historic snowstorm along the Gulf of Mexico. West Michigan was colder than average in January

The pic. shows the National Weather Service Office Yard in Mobile, Alabama on 1 21 25. A Historic snowstorm hit the Gulf of Mexico coast on 1 21 25. Over 4” of snow fell from the Houston, Texas area east to northwest Florida, then northeast to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Here’s some snow totals from southern Louisiana. New Orleans got 10” of snow and they verified an actual blizzard for the first time ever, with a little added lake-effect from Lake Ponchartrain. A blizzard is 3 or more hours of visibilities below 1/4 mile and wind gusts to 35 mph. The visibility at the New Orleans Airport dropped to 1/16th of a mile. This is what you would see a time or two during the winter in North Dakota, not New Orleans.

The highest snow total was 13.4” at Grand Coteau. New Iberia broke their old record low temperature for the date by 20 degrees1 At Mobile, Alabama, they recorded a low temperature of 6 above with a high of just 32.

Satellite icture of southrn Louisiana taken 1 22 25. Skies are clear, the white is snow on the ground - all the way down to the mount of the Mississippi River. Check out the alligator frozen under the ice. Video of blizzard conditions in New Orleans near the lakefront airport.

Here’s a summary of January 2025 weather in Grand Rapids. The average temperature was 22.2° and that was 2.6° colder than average. With an average temperature nearly 10° below freezing, the inland lakes have iced over and the ice fishing has been very good in most areas over the past several weeks. My wife used to go ice fishing in her younger days. She’d bring home some nice ‘gills and panfish.

The warmest temperature of the month was 47° on the 30th and the coldest was a daily record -6° on the 22nd. We had 18 days that were colder than average, 11 days that were warmer than average and 2 days that were exactly average.

Precipitation (rain plus melted snow) totaled 1.22” and that was just 48.4% of average (less than half average).

Here’s monthly snowfall in West Michigan. The most snow was near the Lake Michigan shore with totals decreasing as you moved inland from the lake. Scottville in Mason County gets th “Golden Snowshovel Award for most snow in January.

Interesting not. There was more snow in Grand Coteau, Louisiana in one day than Alma got during the entire month of January.

We had 16 days in January with measurable snow and another 11 days when we had trace amounts of flurries. There were only 4 days when we did not see a snowflake. The most snow on the ground in West Michigan was 6” on the 15th and the 21st. Grand Rapids had at least an inch of snow on the ground from Jan. 2-31 or 30 days in a row.

The average wind speed in Grand Rapids for the month was 11.4 mph. The windiest day was the 27th with an average (sustained) wind of 20.7 mph and a peak gust of 52 mph.

We had 27.6% of possible sunshine in January in Gr. Rapids. It was very cloudy from Jan. 1-16, when we had just 9.8% of possible sunshine. Then, we had a pattern change and the period from Jan. 17-31 gave us 46.5% of possible sunshine. We sometimes see a shift like this around late October when we have a significant abrupt change to cloudier conditiions.

Huh?

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