The next week will be dominated by docile weather and cool temperatures, with only a slight chance of some light snow showers late Wednesday night into Thursday morning. A pretty sizeable ridge of high pressure is beginning to build off the coast which will bump the main storm track well up to our north. Light winds under the ridge will allow some mild temperature inversions to build into the valleys, which might create some deteriorating air quality issues, but at this time it is not expected to get severe. High temperatures will top out in the 30s through the rest of the week, with overnight lows varying between the mid-teens to the low 20s.

Yesterday I mentioned that at this time, this is the third wettest January on record (5.57”). But is it really? The two January’s with higher amounts were in 1916 (6.76”)  and 1890 (6.71”). But those weren’t recorded in the same location.

The precipitation totals are now taken at the Reno airport, which has been the official location since 1942. Back in 1890 they took measurements at UNR, and in 1916 the gauge was at the Odd Fellows Building downtown. Both of those locations are farther west than the airport, and thus probably don’t get quite as much shadowing.

It is impossible to know how much difference that makes in the actual numbers, and we don’t have any corresponding gauges in the old locations today with which to compare. But it is reasonable to speculate that this month might have been as wet, or even wetter, than the top two spots.