January Weather

Laura and I are super boring. One of our favorite topics of discussion is the weather. Specifically how it relates to our moods.

We do not do well in winter. Spokane was a rough place for us to live with all the dark, cold, cloudy/sunless days, and snow. Winters were LONG. There was a solid 5 months of very cold weather. We do not do well in the cold.

The Columbia Basin suits us better. It's just as dark. However, it's not as cold, there is much less snow, and I think there is more sun. Winter seems to go by faster here. Winter here only seems like it's 3 months and it's a tad (maybe) sunnier.

Supposedly, the Tri-Cities gets 300 days of sunshine a year. I'm not quite sure I believe this fact. That seems like a LOT. Sunny days definitely put me in a better mood though which is one of the reasons I like living here so much.

I've decided to track our weather this year to see how close we get to 300 days of sun.

January is always our worst month for sun. December isn't far behind.

Laura, here is my sun "scale." Tell me what you think and if I need to change/modify. This is how I will rate the days.

1. Sunny. A sunny day will be any day in which the sun is out all day. A few clouds might pass across the sun for a few moments of no sun, but that's it. Sunny days will include days in which there are literally no clouds and days in which there are puffy clouds all over or days where the sun is somehow shining all day in some way. As long as the sun is shining, it's sunny.

2. Some sun/Some Clouds. These are the days where there is some blue sky and sun during the day at some point. It may be half the day is sunny but half is completely cloudy. It may rain for part of the day, and then completely clear out.

3. Cloudy. This is pretty easy to define. These are days where it is cloudy all day long. There is not even a hint of sun. We most often get these days in December and January.


So here were the numbers for January:

Sunny: 9
Some sun/Some clouds: 7
Cloudy: 15

Conclusion: About half the month was completely cloudy. I noticed that for this year, the some sun/some cloud days were at the end of the month. The beginning of the month was when we had the long stretch of just cloudy days.

Also, it snowed 3 days. It was foggy 9 days (mostly the first half of the month). We saw some rain on 7 days.