January bitterly cold with abundant snowfall

With mostly sunny skies forecast for Minnesota Wednesday morning, there was a good chance any local cousin of Pennsylvania’s famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil would have see his shadow. That’s not a good sign for winter weary Minnesotans.
Legend has it that if he sees his shadow, it startles him, and he heads straight back into his hole. His unwillingness to stay outside indicates winter will linger. If he doesn’t see it, he stays out and plays, and spring supposedly arrives early.
However, the “Phil” tradition doesn’t take into account Minnesota winters. Immigrants brought the Groundhog Day custom to the United States from Britain and Germany where winters are milder. Today, Phil lives in Pennsylvania, which also experiences more mild winters.
Six more weeks of winter puts Minnesotans into the middle of March. Most residents would welcome just another six weeks of winter. Temperatures can still fall below zero toward the end of the March and snowfalls of more than 10 inches late in March are not unheard of. In fact, it can snow into April.
April 2018 saw 17 inches of snow and April 2013 a record 20.4 inches.
Phil is picking the coldest day forecast in the next two weeks for his one day of fame. The forecast for a high of minus 2 and low of minus 25. It doesn’t warm up Thursday as the high is forecast to be a minus 5 degrees and the low a minus 13. Temperatures do begin to moderate late in the week.
After January’s bitter cold, we are all getting acclimated to below zero temperatures and windchills that can hit a minus 40 degrees.
Twenty-one of January’s 31 days saw lows below zero. There were four days with the highs below zero. In the stretch of days between Jan. 19 and Jan. 28, there were 10 consecutive days with lows below zero. The lows averaged a minus 17.1 degrees during the stretch.
 
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