It’s not just you – it’s been a cloudy stretch of weather for many areas of the Midwest and Great Plains.
Data collected by the Iowa Environmental Mesonet shows the number of overcast days in January were higher than historical averages in most cities in the region.
Andrew Stutzke is a TV meteorologist at WQAD in Moline, Illinois. His Quad Cities audience noticed the long stretch of cloudy days.
“I have so many folks asking, ‘Is this way way cloudier than normal?’” he said. “And I’m like ‘Yeah, you’re onto something. We’ve had very few days with full sunshine in January.’”
The cold season is usually the cloudiest time of the year, according to Doug Kluck, a Kansas City-based climatologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Essentially, cold air and moisture get trapped closer to the ground during winter. It all packs into a thick, dense cloud that blankets the sky.
“During the cold season, it’s easier to condense any moisture you get into clouds,” Kluck said. “Whereas in July and August when the atmosphere is pretty warm, it can hold a lot of water without condensing.”
Stutzke said the clouds may be especially stubborn this year because of El Niño, a weather pattern that tends to send storm systems further south than normal.
“What happens is north of that storm track – where we live – you get a lot of this stagnant air that just doesn’t move,” he said. “There’s no storm system to push through here and move it along to something else.”
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Categories: Kansas, Weather