SIKESTON — January marked the coldest in Southeast Missouri and its surrounding regions in Kentucky and Illinois since 2018, according to the National Weather Service in Paducah, Kentucky.
Monthly average temperatures ranged from 2 to 4 degrees below normal, theWeather Service said. Temperatures fluctuated constantly throughout the month, which is common during the winter season. The warmest stretch was Jan. 12-19, when highs were routinely in the 40s or 50s. The month began with temperatures in the 60s in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, before temperatures dropped through the day.
The two most notable colder periods were Jan. 6-7 and 20-22. Many locations observed highs in the 20s and lows in the single digits or teens during these times. Jan. 26 and 29 also had lows in the single digits for multiple climate sites.
Jan. 1 was the warmest day of the month in Cape Girardeau with a high of 63 degrees. The coldest high was 22 degrees on Jan. 7.
A large portion of the region finished the month wetter than normal. The average amount of rainfall in January is between 3 and 4 inches, the Weather Service said.
This was the case across all of western Kentucky, much of southeast Missouri along and south of a Poplar Bluff to Cape Girardeau line, far southern Illinois and a few locations in southwest Indiana.
The greatest departures, on the order of 2 to 4 inches, were primarily located along the Kentucky/Tennessee and Missouri/Kentucky borders. The highest observed amount was 9.23 inches near Murray, Kentucky.
Meanwhile, much lower precipitation totals were observed from the Missouri Ozark Foothills (Carter and Wayne counties) northeastward into areas of southern Illinois along and north of Route 13. Much of this area finished the month drier than normal. In Southeast Missouri, precipitation totals ranged between 4 and 7 inches.