January was a bipolar month with extremely wet conditions the first 7 days before abruptly switching to a mostly dry pattern for the remainder of the month. 3.71″ of rain fell in just the first week, but less than an inch fell in the remaining 24 days of the month.

January 2022 started off with a major rain and mountain snow storm January 3rd. This storm brought 2.34″ of rain in only 24 hours to Salem causing local flooding along creeks and on some streets. Heavy snow fell with this storm in both the Coast Range and the Cascades where nearly 3 feet of snow accumulated. The Willamette River in Salem topped out at 22.12′ which was the highest level in a few years. Flooding was extremely minor though and was limited to some parks and a few rural areas.

Things calmed down and stayed calm the rest of the month. Overall it was an incredibly “boring” month with very little weather action.

The only other highlight worth mentioning was the number of days with very chilly mornings. Salem reached the freezing mark 13 days in January. The coldest temp occurred on the 29th with a frosty low of 23°. Our warmest temp was 60° on the 12th.

Precip ended at 4.5″ which is 74% of normal making for a drier than average month. January 2022 ended just 0.1° above normal which is basically as close to average as you can get. Both the really chilly nights and the “mild” afternoons all balanced out quite well to give us an average month.

Looking ahead

So far February has been extremely tame and calm as well. We will be dry through Sunday (at least) with highs approaching 60 degrees several days later on this week and into the weekend. Of course this is nice for being outdoors, but terrible for the snowpack, and it only makes the continuing drought conditions worse than they already were. We really need a wet and cool second half of February and March to make up for the lost ground. The cooler weather in January helped preserve the snowpack fairly well despite the lack of precip, but I noticed more areas are beginning to slip below the 100% mark, and with mild temperatures in the forecast and no additional mountain snow coming for at least the next 7 days, these numbers will only drop more.

No need to freak out yet, but if we need to see a pattern change fairly soon…

That’s the scoop on January 2022.

Enjoy your evening and take care!