January weather was a turbulent ride through about every type of storm system possible in the Midwest.

Ed Shimon at the National Weather Service in Lincoln explains January started with an above-normal temperature trend that carried over from December but that quickly changed around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

According to Shimon, after the bitter cold, there was snow that produced anywhere from an inch to two-plus inches in parts of Illinois. And then of course came the treacherous ice storm followed by rain. 

Precipitation for January is predictably well above normal. As for temperatures, the extended cold spell put us about a degree and a half below normal.

According to Shimon, the cold snap of the week of Jan. 14-18 saw a lot of anomalies. He explains one was the length of the cold and then the winds that came with it.

All the precipitation from earlier this month went a long way to ease drought in Illinois. Shimon also has another interesting data point from January that mirrored a rarity from last year.

We'll have more on that coming up later this week on Regional Radio.