One of the fun things about covering the weather for The News-Herald is knowing that nothing is ever "normal," or more accurately, average.

And January has been far from average.

Out of the 21 days thus far for the month the temperature has risen above freezing on only seven days, the last day being January 13.

And no day has been warmer than 43 degrees.

Thus the daily average departure from normal is a chilly minus-six degrees.

As for snow, we are currently tied with 1985 as the ninth snowiest on record at 25.5 inches.

That means we will easily see ourselves rising in the standings.

In eighth place is the 27.4 inches that fell during in the month in 1994.

Back-to-back third and second places finishers were the 32.8 inches in January, 2005 and the 32.9 inches that fell in January, 2004.

The all-time snowiest record for January was the 42.8 inches in January, 1978.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn