U.S. January 2022 Temperature/Precipitation State Rankings

U.S. January 2022 Climate Rankings: Mix of warm and cold; Mostly dry.

Fig. 1: NOAA state-by-state temperature rankings for January 2022 lead by a warm west/cold East mix and featuring a top 10 warm month for California.  

Discussion: Nationally, January 2022 finished middle-of-the-road ranking 167 of 128 years (Fig. 1). A mix of cold in the East whereas the Midwest to Interior Northeast ranked in the top third coldest in history while California recorded a top 10 warmest regime. The U.S. gas population weight HDD value was 1003 which ranks 5^th coldest of 2020-2022. So…while historically January 2022 ranked middle-of-the-road but for this century the month was quite cold. The colder January follows the second warmest December of the past 20 years.

The U.S. observed a very dry January ranking 14^th driest in the 128-year climatology (Fig. 2). The driest region stretched from California to Utah where top-3 all-time dry months of January were observed. Top-10 dryness was encountered from the Great Lakes region to Vermont. The only wet zone was the Mid-Atlantic States to the middle Appalachian Spine States which averaged in the top third of wettest states.

Fig. 2: NOAA state-by-state precipitation rankings for January 2022 lead by a top3 driest California/Nevada/Utah sector with top 10 dryness Great Lakes to Vermont.