Worldwide New Year's Day weather extremes

Last week, I featured some extreme weather events on Christmas Day. With the start of the New Year, here are some extreme weather records that occurred on Jan. 1 across the country.

One of the warmest temperatures occurred back in 1897 on Jan. 1. For example, at La Cross, Wis., the high temperature on that date was a very mild 57 degrees, well above average for the date. In Bangor, Maine, it was 54 degrees Jan. 1, 1925. The normal high for Bangor on Jan. 1 is 29 degrees.

According to data from David Ludlum, snow and severe cold hit the Midwest on Jan. 1, 1964. High temperatures were well below zero as Chicago reported -16 degrees, and parts of Mississippi reported up to 15 inches of snow. Extremely cold weather gripped the central U.S. once again in 1949 and 1988. Temperatures dropped to -31 degrees in Colorado in 1988, with over a foot of snow in Upstate New York, based on data from the National Weather Summary. The following year, in 1989, the fog was so thick from Texas to Wisconsin that many people said they couldn’t see the end of their noses.

In 1934, the Weather Channel states that heavy rain led to flooding in Los Angeles. Rainfall totals were over 16 inches in some locations, with downtown Los Angeles receiving over 8 inches of rain. In 1997, from Dec. 26 through Jan. 3, very heavy rain sent the Truckee River in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to its highest level in history. Lake Tahoe also reached its highest water level. There were numerous levee breaks in the valley locations in California that led to over $1.6 billion in damages.

One of the worst blizzards to hit the Midwest happened Jan. 1-3, 1999. The storm dropped 22 inches of snow in Chicago and was ranked as the second-worst blizzard of the 20th Century.  The coldest temperature in the U.S. on Jan. 1 occurred in 1960 at Maybell, Colo. On that frigid day, the thermometer went all the way down to -60 degrees.

Tornadoes are rare during the winter season, but Dec. 31, 2010, through Jan. 1, 2011, there were 11 twisters spotted in southern and central Mississippi. Two of them were a strong EF-3.

Here in North Idaho, one of the biggest events Jan. 1 occurred in 1961 as a three-day ice storm hit the region. Ice was as much as 4 to 6 inches thick, with some isolated areas reporting up to 8 inches of ice. The harsh conditions led to widespread power outages.

In Coeur d’Alene, the warmest New Year’s Day occurred in 1918 with a high of 60 degrees. The coldest was in 1979 with a low of -12 degrees. The record precipitation, which is rain and melted snow, was 0.77 inches in 2004. In terms of snow, the most that was measured was on Jan. 1, with 6 inches in 1986.

The Southern Hemisphere is in the middle of its summer season at this time of year. On Jan. 1, 2006, Sydney, Australia, had its hottest New Year’s Day with a sizzling 113-degree day. Sydney also had one of the most severe storms in that region as a damaging hailstorm hit that area in 1947. Some of the hailstones were over 8 inches in diameter.

Northern Europe had one of the biggest windstorms in history Jan. 1, 1992. Sustained winds in parts of the United Kingdom, the Faroe Islands and Norway were over 100 miles per hour, which would be the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane. Offshore wind gusts on that New Year’s Day were estimated to be nearly 200 miles per hour. That would be comparable to a Category 4 hurricane.

In terms of our local weather, our moisture totals increased across the Inland Northwest since the middle of October. Since Oct. 11, over 9 inches of moisture have been reported at Cliff Harris’s station in Coeur d’Alene. However, the air masses from these systems in December have been too warm to produce significant snowfalls in the lower elevations. So far, only 7.1 inches have been reported in Coeur d’Alene, with 4.1 inches at the Spokane International Airport.

The long-range computer models are still showing the possibility of some snow in the lower elevations during the early to mid-portion of the month from a series of Pacific storm systems. A ridge of high pressure is expected to bring drier conditions around the middle of January before more systems move across the region after the middle of the month. We’ll have to wait and see whether these storms later in January will be cold enough to produce snow in the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene region. 

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Contact Randy Mann at [email protected].