Party Like It's 1950

Even the snow-lovers would have to admit that a nice day is better than an ice day. Except for the notoriously unrepresentative locations near cold bodies of water, temperatures were in the 60s by early afternoon today in the Washington DC metro area. To the south, Stafford claimed a reading of 68 by 3pm. That certainly qualifies as a nice day in January, on average the coldest month. The best part is that the warmth is not accompanied by rain (yet), and you don't have to wait until The Midnight Hour. It's not warm enough to set a record in the century-plus history of the city locations, but for Dulles today easily surpasses the old record of 57 in 1991. (That leaves only 2 January dates, tomorrow and the 10th, which have never exceeded 60 there.)

A low pressure area working its way northeastward toward the Great Lakes will bring the threat of showers to our region tomorrow, but for now, the radar is clear for hundreds of miles.

Tonight and Tomorrow

For tonight, lows in the low to mid 40s will be accompanied by increasing cloudiness. Tomorrow's highs will be in the low 60s under mostly cloudy skies and a 50% chance of showers in the afternoon or evening.

How Warm Is It?

This year's warm start has many people asking how unusual it is for January. The monthly average temperature of 42.7 through yesterday has moved up the charts to 9th place on the 135-year official Washington hit parade.

One record which is not in jeopardy of being broken any time soon, however, is the amazing 48 degree average in January 1950. That month's 13-degree excess over the January average for the entire period of record makes it the warmest month of all time in Washington history, relative to average. It's enough to be warm for March (3.2 degrees above the period-of-record average) and equal to or warmer than the 2 coldest Aprils. The chart of the daily temperatures from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center shows that the month started off warm, with highs in the 70s on 3 consecutive days in the first week and reaching 70 again on the 10th. The coldest day was the 20th, with a high of 35 and a low of 22, but after that the temperature rose steadily for 6 straight days, reaching over 70 on 3 of them, including the all-time January record of 79 on the 26th. Five of those daily records still stand over half a century later.

CapitalWeather.com chart from NWS monthly records

It Could Happen the Day After Tomorrow (Or Not)

• Last week's IMHO distinctly underwhelming Category 3 Hurricane Destroys New York will be followed by F5 Tornado Does Dallas on TWC's "It Could Happen Tomorrow", Sunday at 9:30pm.
  
• WeatherTalk radio has inexplicably invited conspiracy nut Scott Stevens, tinfoil hat and all, back for a second week, Sunday at 3pm, WCBM 680. As the CarTalk guys say, "You've wasted another perfectly good hour . . ."
  
• A site visitor has pointed us to the dcrtv news that the, shall we say, "flamboyant" Joe Bastardi has been pulled from national broadcast duty by AccuWeather. I have personally noted his absence from CNBC since late summer or early fall. (Currently at the top of dcrtv is an interesting item about Rush and Daryn, but that's a subject for another blog.)