January sputters with odd weather

Winter months are great for offering up some reading time. We all find that comfortable, well-lit spot, a drink (your choice) and a great book — maybe some great music, too. My personal interests are wide and varied when it comes to books and reading, though weather and weather events are always subjects I like to read about. Given that we still have some winter left, I want to share with you some titles and a little synopsis of some books about weather I’ve read, may be reading or have waiting to be read.

One of the first books on weather that really piqued my interest was one required with other materials for a university class. The little book is “Weather of the San Francisco Bay Area,” by Harold Gilliam. I still have my copy; it’s still fun to glance through now and then. The weather of the Bay Area is unique and known for its fog. Gilliam goes beyond the obvious fog and what drives its creation, and addresses many other aspects, such as the unique geography and the seasons that create the weather of that coastal city. An added plus is some of the natural history he writes about.

On a trip to Minnesota’s North Shore, I bought “November Fury, The Deadly Great Lakes Hurricane of 1913,” by Michael Schumacher. This page-turner is full of the events, the people, the ships and the great storm that ravaged a large area of the Great Lakes region. The determination, skill and, for some, the ultimate sacrifice is simply remarkable given the relentlessness of this particular storm. This book was hard to put down.

A friend recently loaned me a copy of “The Children’s Blizzard,” by David Laskin. I just started reading this one and it already hit home. It starts with the story of Scandinavian families leaving their home countries for a variety of reasons in the late 19th century, not unlike my paternal grandparents who came here in the early 20th century. The proposition of homesteading on the upper Great Plains was inviting to all. Unfortunately, the weather of 1888 and the blizzard that swiped the upper plains took and changed many lives. Still reading this one.

Let’s take a look at the weather data for January. First, temperatures: the low for the month here at the home weather station was 14.6°F on Jan. 3, while the all-time low was -17° in 1950. The high temperature was 52.0° on the 29th; in 1971, we had the all-time high of 57°. The mean for January was 33.7°; the all-time mean is 26.8°.

At my home weather station, the January precipitation was 2.41 inches of both rain and snow water equivalent (SWE). The all-time precipitation mean is 1.06 inches. Snowfall here at home was 1.8 inches total. The all-time snowfall mean is 6.3 inches. Now, our official weather station, Coulee Dam 1 SW, had 2.04 inches of precipitation and snowfall of 4.8 inches. Our all-time high precipitation for January was 2.52 inches in 1959, and the all-time snowfall was 21.6 inches in 1950.