Spokane barely saw the sun in January – here’s why, according to forecasters

Sunshine was at a premium last month in the Spokane region.

Of the 31 days in January, 24 were considered fully cloudy while another five were partly cloudy, according to the National Weather Service in Spokane. The remaining two days were the only ones that saw clouds covering two-tenths of the sky or less, said meteorologist Jon Fox.

The trend was caused by a persistent ridge of high pressure that hovered over the region for much of the month, causing low clouds that trapped cooler temperatures within the Spokane Valley. And without any significant weather systems or wind, Fox said the region was just stuck in a “stagnant pattern” with nothing to get rid of the low clouds and fog.

As a result, Spokane only recorded three days above 40 degrees – the fewest since 2004, Fox said.

“That’s pretty gloomy,” he said. “If you’re a skier and you went up to Mount Spokane or Silver Mountain or something like that, chances are there were a whole lot of days where it was sunny there and it was warmer than it was, say, down closer to the ground.”

Spokane’s average high temperature for January was 34.4 degrees while the low was 24.3 degrees. The latter was much milder than it could have been without the cloud cover, Fox said.

“What (the clouds) do is they keep the temperature fairly cool during the day, but they act like a blanket and they keep us fairly warm at night as well,” he said.

In terms of snowfall, the 11 inches seen last month were the second highest seen for the month in the last five years, up from 3.5 in January 2021. Nearly half of the 2022 total, 5.3 inches, was recorded Jan. 6 during a winter storm that plagued much of the Inland Northwest.

If recent history holds, February will be a snowier month than January, despite having fewer days.

With 2020 as the exception, February snow has exceeded January totals in Spokane in four of the last five years. This despite the opposite seen over the area’s 30-year averages, which reflect that January is typically a snowier month than February, Fox said.

As it is, Spokane is at 30.7 inches of snow this season since the first snowfall Nov. 18. That actually puts Spokane behind normal despite La Niña, Fox said.

“La Niña just kind of bends the odds toward seeing snowier and cooler conditions than normal, but it doesn’t always have to work out that way,” he said. “Just because a team is favored to win 67% of the time, it doesn’t always mean they’re going to win.”

Looking ahead this month, Fox said the weather service is thus far forecasting cooler than normal temperatures and near-normal precipitation amounts.

As for the cloudy weather from January, Fox said the region is “getting into more of an active pattern” this week, as seen with the snow showers in southeast Washington and parts of Idaho.