January 2011 in Mobile, Alabama is sure to make climate zombies scream that "thar ain't be no global wurmin!" I went through all 43,633 minutes of data recorded between Jan 1 and 31 at the USA Mesonet station on the University of South Alabama campus in Mobile, AL, and compiled some fun climate facts for the month of January.
All data in this report is from either the USA Mesonet webpage, which is free for public use, and the National Climate Data Center. January 2011 data was compiled from the USA page, and 30 year averages (1980-2009) were referenced from the 2009 Annual Local Climatological Data report released by the NCDC for Mobile Regional Airport (KMOB), which is situated 3 miles west of the USA Campus.
All data was tediously compiled by me in Microsoft Excel, including the charts and whatnot. You can access the raw data I used in the following Google Docs files:
Data for Temp Average, Daily Precip, Max Wind & Highs/Lows charts can be found HERE.
All raw data can be downloaded as an Excel 2007 document HERE.
Here's a brief overview of January 2011 at USA and 30 year January averages from the airport:
January 2011 Averages
USA Mesonet Station -- Mobile, AL -- 125 feet ASL
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January 30 Year Averages (1980-2009)
Mobile Regional Airport (KMOB) -- Mobile, AL -- 215 feet ASL
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*Error Correction: "Average Snowfall" should be 0.10 inches
Daily Temperature (Dry Bulb) Averages
For the daily temperature averages, I averaged out all dry bulb temperature data for one day and plotted it on the chart. The average dry bulb temperature for January 2011 at the location was 7.99°C, which is about 2°C below average for the month. January began above-to-around average, until a cold snap mid-month came over the northern Gulf Coast. The average temperature on during the cold snap averaged around freezing, which happens once or twice per season in this region.
Daily Highs And Lows
The daily highs and lows chart helps illustrate the extent of the cold snap during January 9-13, where the daily high temperatures approached the average low for January. Aside from the cold snap, afternoon temperatures generally stayed above 50°F, and hovered around average for this time of year.
Daily Precipitation
Precipitation was slightly less than 2 inches below average for the month. Most of the month's precipitation fell gradually throughout the day over 13 days as weather systems moved through, rather than dumping all at once, as is typical during Mobile's famous spring and summer "popcorn thunderstorms."
Max Winds
The max winds for each day of the month help show the various weather systems that moved through during the period. I'll have to go back and check the HPC charts, but it looks like a cold front came through on Jan 10th that helped trigger the cold snap.
Pressure Trends
Sea level pressures were around standard (1013.25mb...average was 1014mb) for the first half of the month, with the exception of the cold snap, which caused high pressure to build in.
Here's the second half of the month (Excel made me break up the data into two charts because there was too much data for the program to process at once). Again, sea level pressures remained around standard pressure, until a low pressure moved through during the day of the 25th.
So there you have it. That was the month of January here in Mobile. It was cold and slightly drier than average. Every time it got cold out, all the bubbas would go out and scream "WHAR U NOW AL GURR! IT BE COLD DURKA DURR!" because they're idiots. Hopefully the month of February will be more exciting (actually it already is -- it was 75 on Feb 1, we had freezing rain yesterday, and we had 3 thunderstorms today).