By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

One 10th of one degree.

That’s the difference.

Had January’s temps been just a hair higher, the month would have tied the warmest January on record.

As it is, the 30.3 degrees Fahrenheit that this past January averaged ranks it as No. 2 on the all-time list.

That’s 8.6 degrees above the month’s normal average of 21.7.

January 2002’s 30.4 degree average is No. 1; the 30.2 degree average posted in January 1990 comes in at No. 3.

Why so warm?

“We just got lucky, I guess,” replies Tom Hawley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray.

“It’s just the pattern we’re in. The jet stream has been holding to the north,” Hawley explained.

That’s kept typically bone-chilling January cold over the Arctic and Canada, giving Maine a reprieve.

It’s also put egg on the faces of Abe Weatherwise and Caleb Weatherbee, the respective prognosticators of all things weather for the Old Farmer’s Almanac in New Hampshire and its competitor, the Lewiston-based Farmers Almanac.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac went out on a limb predicting that “January will be exceptionally cold.”

The Farmers Almanac stated New England’s winter would be both “very cold” as well as “snowy.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be as accurate as it has been,” said Farmers Almanac Managing Editor Sandi Duncan of this year’s forecast.

She hastened to add, however, that “this winter is far from being over.”

There’s still time for that deep, painful cold to settle in.

Punxsutawney Phil, the famed Pennsylvania groundhog, makes his annual appearance today giving everyone a hint at just how long winter will last.

Paul Boudreau is hoping Phil doesn’t see his shadow and that the worst is already behind us.

Boudreau heads up Lewiston’s Public Works Department. He’s seen years when his crews are sweeping the streets in March.

“This might be one of those years,” he said Wednesday.

February, he pointed out, sometimes starts off cold but generally shows signs of warming before the month ends.

Already “we’re seeing some spring-like conditions,” he said.

Among them: Potholes.

At one point this winter, “we had 2 feet of frost in the ground under the roads,” Boudreau said. Now, “there’s nothing.”

The freeze-thaw cycle gives birth to potholes. Rain or snow melt makes its way into cracks. When it freezes again, it makes more cracks in pavement, leading eventually to what Boudreau called “a bowl of Jell-O” that spills out as tires rumble over.

Still, he said, people shouldn’t get their hopes up that the mild winter so far will mean big savings when it comes to the municipal budget.

“We’ve had quite a few nuisance storms,” Boudreau noted. Those storms haven’t dumped a lot of snow, but they’ve still required public works crews to get out and plow and sand the roads and sidewalks.

And more, obviously, could come.

“It’s been a roller-coaster year, ups and downs,” Boudreau said.

“Polar Coaster” is the way Duncan put it. “And I have a feeling weren’t not yet out of the winter woods.”

Hawley, the meteorologist, says Duncan could be right.

“By the middle of next week it’ll turn very cold and stay that way for a while,” he predicted.

First, though, expect a bit more warmer-than-normal temps and some rain Friday into Saturday. Snow heading this way toward Monday will be the harbinger of the colder temps to follow and linger, Hawley said.

But like it or not, records show we’re sliding slowly toward spring. While temps in early February in Maine tend to average 13 for a low and 32 for a high, by month’s end they rise to 19 and 37.

January average temperatures*

Warmest:

No. 1: 30.4 degrees F, set in 2002

No. 2: 30.3 degrees F, set in 2006

No. 3: 30.2 degrees F, set in 1990

Coldest:

12.2 degrees F, set in 1971

Normal average for January: 21.7

*Note: All figures are for Portland

Source: National Weather Service

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