Warmest January Readings on Record May Give Way to Severe Thunderstorms

A January Paradise at the Park

I had a great day with my kids at Armstrong Park but the latest maps in this afternoon are telling us this will be no walk in the park. My daughters and I enjoyed their last day of Christmas vacation by feeding the ducks. Amazing we did not need our coats as you see above! Lauren was a little scared of the Canada geese that hissed at us, but she really enjoyed feeding the mallards. These were the same ducks that were standing on ice just a few days ago. Today, there wasn't any sign of ice or winter. It is hard to believe just a few days ago we had a low of -1 in Lafayette and today we were nearly 70 degrees warmer! Nothing surprises me about our weather anymore.

We have to remember that this warm weather usually does not come without paying a price and we could see strong thunderstorms tonight and severe thunderstorms develop on Tuesday as a result. How do you get thunderstorms in January? Well, it is not unprecedented for a single isolated storm to pop up this time of year, but I have several thunderstorms in the forecast over the next couple of days. Something has to give when we are breaking not just records, but all-time record temperatures for the month of January. The low this morning of 61 degrees was the warmest temperature, I could find for nighttime lows in January for Lafayette dating back to 1896 or since records have been kept! If this was not enough, today's high of 69 smashed the old record of 62 set back in 1989. This was our second warmest January day ever recorded as you see above! Only one January day in 1950 was warmer than today. Today was warmer than 3,471 January days on record since 1896. This warmth is mind-boggling.



Our weather watcher numbers were amazing and the only thing keeping us from reaching 70 degrees today was all of the cloud cover. Today's highs were normally what we would have seen on May 7th. So what happens when you go from May weather back to January weather all in one day? Rough weather and possible severe thunderstorms. I will have more on this tonight on the newscast.

You can see the warning signs above on the national satellite and radar composite. Look at the nasty line of thunderstorms that extended nearly a thousand miles from Michigan to Oklahoma this evening. You can see the clash of seasons causing the trouble with huge temperature differences ahead of and behind the cold front. This squall line will move our way on Tuesday. Check back here on the blog for the latest timeline on our record-breaking warmth and severe weather. I think we will break another record high on Tuesday before winter returns late Tuesday night. Stay safe and stay tuned. Feed the ducks while you can! They were still hungry when we left.