People use calendars and clocks to set their schedules and plan their weekends. But in January, one only needed to look outside and see snow falling to know that the weekend was upon us.
Snow fell nearly every weekend in Los Alamos and the area, last month. It also was colder than normal, helping to keep the snow pack on the ground, according to Laboratory meteorologist Scot Johnson of Environmental and Remediation Support Services (ERSS-ES).
The weekend parade of storms deposited 14 inches of snow in Los Alamos last month, which is the average, said Johnson. Three inches of snow fell the first weekend of 2007. A similar amount of snow fell the weekend of January 12-13, followed by another storm the weekend of January 20.
“There was general disappointment as the center of the storm passed a little too far to the southeast to deliver the copious amounts hoped for in our county,” Johnson said of the January 20 weekend storm.
The final weekend of the month dropped 5½ inches of snow in Los Alamos, said Johnson.
All told, 1.06 inches of precipitation was recorded in Los Alamos in January or one-tenth of an inch above average. In White Rock, a half-inch of precipitation was recorded last month, slightly below the .62 inches normally measured, said Johnson.
The snow also helped keep temperatures down last month. Johnson said the mean temperature in Los Alamos in January was 24 degrees Fahrenheit, or 4 F below normal, while in White Rock, the mean temperature of 25 F was 3 F below normal.
The high temperature of 26 F January 15 in White Rock set a record for the lowest maximum temperature. But Johnson said it could have been colder; parts of the eastern plains suffered through sudden, large temperature drops, explaining that the southern Rockies shield this area from the brunt of artic air masses.
Johnson said average wind speeds were 10 and 15 percent greater than normal in Los Alamos and White Rock last month respectively.
Johnson said the National Center for Environmental Prediction says temperatures and precipitation should be about normal this month. However, Johnson said “The climate predictions return to average temperatures and greater-than-normal precipitation in the months following February.”
More information about weather in the region can be found at http://weather.lanl.gov online.
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