January At Grandfather Mountain Sees Extreme Temperature Variations

The weather data from the month of January recorded at the official US Weather Service reporting station located next to Grandfather Mountain’s Mile High Swinging Bridge shows temperatures that started out seasonably warm and then plummeted the second half of the month.
  Unseasonably warm temperatures broke daily high temperature records four times during January.  The temperature reached 56 degrees on January 4 breaking the previous record of 55 degrees for that day set in 2005. 
The weekend before Martin Luther King Jr. Day experienced more warm temperatures when January 13 had a high temperature of 54 degrees breaking the previous record of 49 degrees set in 1972 and tied in 2005.  
The trend continued the next day with a temperature of 55 degrees on January 14 breaking the previous record of 53 degrees set in 1960.  The holiday rounded out the warm weather with a temperature of 53 degrees on January 15 breaking the 1960 recorded for the day of 49 degrees.
After that holiday, the temperature plummeted and Grandfather Mountain only reached the freezing point three times for the rest of the month.    The lowest temperature recorded during the month was negative four degrees on January 29.  However, the extreme record breaking temperatures at the beginning of January kept the temperature averages for the month slightly above normal.
The average high temperature of 36.52 degrees was 1.08 degrees warmer than normal for January, and the average low temperature of 22.55 was 2.66 degrees above normal for this time of year.
 The rainfall total of 5.04 inches for the past month was .53 inches, or 11 percent, above the 51-year average rainfall total for January of 4.51 inches. 
The snowfall total for the month was 10.05 inches, falling short of the 51-year average snowfall total for January of 13.87 inches.
Wind speeds exceeded 60 miles per hour on 21 days and exceeded 100 mph 14 times in January.  These wind speeds were measured by the anemometer on top of the building near the Swinging Bridge.  A new anemometer is scheduled to be installed in early February to confirm accuracy of current measured speeds.
 For more information on the 51 years of weather data from Grandfather Mountain, see the interactive weather database at www.grandfather.com.