Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1903 — January Weather Record. [ARTICLE]

January Weather Record.

The month Of January 1903 has gone into the limbo of the past. From a weather point of view it was a pretty good sdrt of a January as Januaries go in this region. Still it had a few spells of pretty cold weather and a few storms, yet it was far indeed from being the wild and stormy month the long distant weather fakirs prophesied it would be. There was a solid week of very cold weather from the 7th to the 14th, with three below zero marks, of 2,7 and 4 degrees on the 10th, 12th and 13th respectively. Those were the only zero dates, and that was the only spell of really severe cold, except on the 18th and 19th when we got in sight of zero but “ never touched it.” The warmest week of the month was the last, with the unusual January heat of 55 degrees, on the 29th. There were 9 inches of snow fall during the month, but the month came in with the ground bare and left it in the same condition. The precipitation was 1.14 inches, which came in two rains and four snow storms. Thus there were only 6 really stormy days in the month, though on four others there were traces of snow and on two others trades of rain. There were 9 clear days, 8 partly cloudy and 14 wholly cloudy. On two days the fog was thick enough to cut and pile up in blocks. There was sleet also on two days, to add to the variety. As compared with the marvellous but now generally forgotten, January 1902 it was not nearly so fine a month, but that was the finest January ever known here. There were more storms this January than last, more cold weather and also much more that was cloudy and gloomy. January 1902 was, in fact phenomenal for this region. It had 17 clear days and 6 partly clear. There was no rain at all and only 5 light snow storms; and all of them came wholly during the night, so that there was not a single stormy day in the whole month. The first two thirds of the month were absolutely free from storms of any kind.