Facebook fans have been chuckling lately at a meme that says, “the inventor of the wind chill factor has died; he was 82 but he felt like 64.” Sure, it’s a funny gag but in real life, the inventor of the wind chill factor only lived to be 60. A hard life of research in Antarctica probably did him in early.
Paul Siple was his name and from 1928 to 1957, he went on six south polar expeditions. Part of those jobs was to design cold weather gear for the military.
The forecast for January for our region indicates polar weather for us with several outbreaks of chill rolling down from the North Pole. January 1st-4th should be cold and snowy. January 5th-13th could be a very cold arctic outbreak. The 14th to 17th should be sunny and cold. The 18th to 23rd may be cold and snowy. Finally, the 24th to 31st should be cold with flurries.
In the end, January temperatures should average two to seven degrees cooler than normal. Precip is expected to be normal which this time of year mean about 10 inches of snow for the month. As this is being written on December 26th, the month was 5.2 degrees colder than normal. But, a warm spell was expected to start on the 27th. So, next month we should be able to see if December went colder than normal or warmer than normal when all the data was settled. We’ll also find out if the year 2022 was colder or warmer than normal, too. Stay tuned!
