This is January, Right?

It looks like a duck, walks like a duck, it must be a duck. It feels like March, acts like March, so it must be...what, January? Huh?

Monthly temperatures are now averaging between 5 and 7 degrees above normal. And this includes that brutal stretch of cold we experienced earlier this month.

Rainfall amounts are well above average for the month too. That would be expected since the bulk of our measurable precipitation for January should be in the form of something frozen.

I want you to keep in mind that Alaska and Kentucky are interconnected more than you think, and I don't mean sharing statehood in these United States of America.

The other day on the 18th, Fairbanks recorded a high temperature of -41 degrees after bottoming out at -51. The low temperature was not even a record, since -61 was the record.

Still, the average temperature of -46 (add the high and low, then divide by two), was some 37 degrees below normal.

Transporter...beam me to somewhere in Kentucky. Our high temperatures have been averaging 10-20 degrees above normal recently, offsetting the Arctic chill earlier.

The connection? Typically, not always, when parts of Alaska are experiencing much below normal temperatures, our temperatures will be averaging above normal plus or minus a couple of days.

Now watch what happens over the next week or two. Eventually, Alaska will be recording above average readings, and guess where that should lead us? At the very least, to conditions that resemble winter, perhaps below normal for a time.

And the month of February may be able to exceed snow totals from January. However, we still have to get through the rest of January, since the end of the month could throw some surprises our way, yet.

MS