From: Robert Skilling To: Charlie Orloff (BHO) Subject: BLUEHILL MA 301300 OVC 4R-F 33/33/SE13/2975FR/R:0.10 Date: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:52 PM BLUE HILL METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATORY, MILTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02186 ELEVATION 635 FT. ABOVE MSL....10 MILES SSW OF BOSTON, MA TUESDAY JANUARY 30 2001 PLEASE VISIT OUR WEB SITE AT: http://www.bluehill.org/ DAILY DISCUSSION....1 P.M. 1/30/2001 Temperatures edged slowly above freezing by late this morning. Earlier some light freezing rain and sleet occurred around mid-morning changing to non-freezing rain. As of 1 P.M. we had recorded 0.10 inch of precipitation. PLEASE SEE.... OUR JANUARY DAILY DATA AT BOTTOM OF PAGE...thru 1/29 LOW WIND SPEEDS THIS MONTH.... The average wind speed for January to date is only around 12 MPH. This is far below the average for the month which is up around 15 to 16 MPH. In addition, the peak gust for the month is below 50 MPH. On our official record, it's 43 MPH NNW on the 10th with 48 MPH on Aerovane. We looked back and could not find a January with such low winds dating back some 20 years. Of course, the month is not over so we'll have to wait and see how it turns out. This is similar to November when we reported unusually low winds for the month. A look at the month reveals some interesting stats so far. Our minimum temperature for the month is 9 degrees (not at all cold for January). In fact, the highest January minimum in the past 30 years is 12 degrees recorded in 1990. If it does not get colder by month's end then we'll have the seconds highest monthly minimum for January in the past 30 years. On the other hand, our maximum for the month is just 41 degrees. Every year during the decade of the 1990's had January monthly maxima reaching at least 50 degrees! Three years had maximums in the 60's. The lowest January maximum temperature since 1970 is 42 degrees recorded in 1985. The month of January is averaging about 1 1/2 degrees warmer than normal to date with a total departure of +47 degrees for 29 days. Precipitation totals 2.54 inches [ -1.47 INS.] Snowfall for the month has totaled 19.6 inches and is running ahead of the monthly norm. The normal snowfall total for all of January is 15.4 inches. We currently report 11 inches of total snow cover this morning at the snow stake in the enclosure and this is very representative of snow depth here at the summit of the hill. TODAY'S MANUAL OBSERVATIONS AT BLUE HILL... 7 A.M. 1/30/2001 TUE BHO SA 1155 E70 OVC 12 152/31/24/2114/998/ HAZY ZRBE UKN/ 8/07// 4/011 58009 6000 10031 20025 10 A.M. light freezing rain and 32 deg. wnd s at 13 mph with intermittent sleet past hour total precip. past 3 hours 0.01 inch BHO SA 1455 E35 BKN 55 OVC OVC 8ZR- 137/32/28/1811/993/ RB25E45ZRB45IPB45E50/ 8/02// 58015 6001/ 1 P.M. light rain and fog and 33 deg. wnd se 13 mph rainfall 0.10 inch past six hours BHO SA 1755 E37 OVC 4R-F 073/33/33/1311/975/ THN F DRFTG OVR/BLO SMT VSBY N 1 E 3 PRESFR/ 8/02// 56064 6010/ 10033 20031 DATA RECORDED FOR MONDAY JANUARY 29... TEMPERATURES.... MAX 35 MIN 17// ASOS MAX 34 ASOS MIN 17 MEAN 26 [+ 1 ] TOTAL DEP FOR MONTH TO DATE: + 47 degrees January averaging about 1.5 degrees above normal PRECIPITATION.... NONE MONTH: 2.54 [ - 1.47] YEAR: 2.54 [ - 1.47] SNOWFALL... NONE MONTH: 19.6 INS SEASON: 30.2 INS. PEAK GUST: 24 MPH SW @ 11:56 P.M. PEAK GUST AERO: 27 MPH SW @ 11:56 P.M. DAILY JANUARY 2001 DATA....AT BLUE HILL... max/min/mean/dep/precip/snow/sun mins/%/pk gust 1 31/18/25/-1/0/0/549/100/28 W 2 28/13/20/-6/0/0/490/89/28 NW 3 31/12/22/-4/0/0/512/93/24 NW 4 31/19/25/-1/0/0/282/51/22 W 5 31/18/25/-1/0.09/1.0/205/37/21 SE 6 35/27/31/+5/0.27/1.8/0 / 0 / 28 NW 7 34/21/28/+2/0/0/405/73/24 WNW 8 38/30/34/+8/0.09/1.0/183/33/14 N 9 31/18/25/-1/0.23/4.0/0 /0/ 27 W 10 23/9/16/-9/T/T/548/98/43 NNW 11 37/13/25/0/0/185/ 33/ 36 W 12 29/20/25/0/0/ 550/98/ 27 W 13 35/16/26/+1/0 / 0/ 417/74/ 21 WSW 14 41/25/33/+8/ 0 / 0 / 209/37/ 22 WSW 15 35/22/29/+4/ 0.50/ 2.5/ 0 / 0/ 25 NE 16 38/23/31/+6/ T / 0/068/12/30 WNW 17 39/24/32/+7/ 0 / 0/290/51/30 WNW 18 29/18/24/-1/ T/T/ 223/39/ 18 SSE 19 35/27/31/+6/0.50/0.3/ 0 /0/ 20 N 20 32/25/29/+4/0.17/1.5/0 / 0/ 31 NE 21 28/17/24/-1/0.68/7.5/185/32/ 38 NNW 22 33/14/24/-1/0 / 0/ 556/96/ 21 W 23 36/20/28/+3/ 0 /0/ 500/86/ 24 S 24 38/24/31/+6/ 0/ 0/ 262/45/ 21 NNW 25 38/23/31/+6/ 0/ 0/ 486/83/ 23 NNW 26 35/15/25/0/ 0 / 0/ 559/95/ 21 NNW 27 35/24/30/+5/ 0.01/0.1/ 0 / 0/ 30 WNW 28 33/21/27/+2/ 0 / 0/ 551/93/ 32 WNW 29 35/17/26/+1/ 0 / 0/ .../ ../ 24 SW RECORDS FOR JANUARY 30 HIGH 60 IN 1914 LOW - 8 IN 1948 PRECIP 1.12 INS IN 1925 WIND 76 MPH WNW IN 1962 RECORD FOR JANUARY 31 HIGH 58 IN 1913/1947 LOW -12 IN 1920 PRECIP 1.03 INS IN 1914 WIND 75 MPH NW IN 1974 Robert Skilling