Posted by Scott Rozenbaum (Rozewood Environmental Services, Inc.)
Lopez Island
Feb 3, 2026

360.468.4448
360.202.0096 (cell)

January 2026 seemed like a teeter-totter ride. One extreme to another (rain-wise), but mild temperatures were frequent, and winter was generally missing in action. Temperature ‘extremes’ were tame, and regionally ranged from 54° to 28° throughout large portions of the island, north and south. Some waterfront properties didn’t dip into the upper 20s. My north-central location ranged from 54° to 25°, with my coldest low (25°) occurring on the morning of Jan. 25th. I recorded 13 mornings with frosts, varying from light and patchy to thick and persisting. Most of my frosts occurred during our unusually dry period between Jan. 15th through the 27th, though I also had a few frosts early in the month. But it was obvious that other locations had much less frosts, and some locations may not have had any in January. It certainly was variable. The shaded locations in my yard sometimes held and contained the cold air, with frosts persisting, and I had a large birdbath freeze solid and stay frozen for many days on end. But even so, we had the other upswing in that we had a decent number of mild-ish days, perfect for outdoor chores, walks, and yes, funny as it seems, mowing lawns in January, as the grass was mildly growing during the month with those intermittent daytime highs reaching into the upper 40s and low to mid 50s. I did not mow; that’s a mid-late March activity in my thinking.

As you likely noticed, there were signs of early spring frequent throughout the month. Early bulbs breaking ground (snowdrops, grape hyacinths, early crocuses, and early daffodils), flowering quince starting to bloom, Indian plum buds swelling and greening, alder and hazelnut catkins elongating, cover crops lightly growing….a variety of plant growth to see if you took the time to look for it. My rain gauge had days where the collected rainwater was tinted light yellow or gold due to airborne tree pollen subtly drifting around and being collected and washed into the gauge.

The first two weeks of January were quite wet, with 2+ inches of rainfall (and some north-end locations pushing 3 inches). During that time, on January 7th, we had a single large clap of thunder and flash of lightening in the early morning daylight. Some locations on the island had light to moderate downpours of hail/ graupel mix. At my place, the icy mix accumulated to a third of an inch, and was visibly a thin whitish coating covering the deck, lawn, and car. Not exactly snow, but it was fun to see it while it lasted. Some cool, shaded spots (like shaded road shoulders) around the north end held onto the hail-graupel accumulations for good portions of that day.

The first half of the month was wet, the second half was primarily very dry and then the last few days of January received some rainfall to wrap up the month. Our 13 to 14 consecutive days of no rain in the second half of January was an unexpected surprise! Cumulative January rainfall is illustrated on the attached figure. The northern half of the island ranged from 3 to 3.5 inches, which is fairly close to average, with some north-end locations running 0.25-to-0.5 inches below average. Meanwhile the Southend ranged from 2.5 to 3 inches of rainfall, and ran about 0.5-to-0.75 inches below average. My north-central gauge had 3.48 inches, which is fairly close to my 29-year average of 3.60 inches. That January ‘average’ keeps creeping upward as the years progress.