HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Yes, it was cold in January across north Alabama. But it wasn't the coldest January on record.

Even though the National Weather Service forecasting office in Huntsville said the average temperature last month was only a shade above freezing (33.8 degrees), it was only the eighth-coldest January in north Alabama.

Regardless of the framework of history, it was cold last month. A statistical review of the month by the weather service found:

Low temperatures dipped below freezing on 27 of the 31 days.

On six days, the temperature did not rise above freezing.

Temperatures dropped below 10 degrees in Huntsville on five days, the most since eight days in 1977.

Four cold-weather temperature records were set in January in Huntsville: The lowest temperatures on record on Jan. 6 and 7 (8 and 4 degrees, respectively) and lowest high temperature on Jan. 6 and 28 (25 and 20 degrees, respectively).

It was much the same story in Muscle Shoals, with below normal temperatures on 20 days and temperatures dropping below freezing on all but five days.

Despite the bitter cold month, both Huntsville and the Shoals recorded only a trace of snowfall for the month. That brief snowfall in Huntsville came on the same day a blast of winter weather snarled traffic in central Alabama and day before a weather model suggested a major winter storm for north Alabama that never came to fruition.



Check out more information on the cold January at the weather service website by clicking here.