January logs 14 days without sun so far

What a sight! Sunshine has finally arrived!

The Monday sunshine here marks the first time in seven days we’ve seen Old Sol in the city.

To date this January, and the month’s not yet over, we’ve logged 14 days with no sun. That’s not a record but it’s not far from it. The record for most cloudy January days occurred back in 1998 when 20 days passed with a ray of sun.

We have 129 years of sunshine data here in Chicago dating back to 1894 and my WGN meteorological colleagues Mark Carroll and Frank Wachowski note that only 7 of those 129 years have had more cloudy days in January than we’ve endured this month. And Mark notes 4 of those 7 cloudiest January days have occurred since 2017. But, as noted here earlier–January 2023’s not over year.

There may be, in fact there are likely to be, additional cloudy days added to our monthly tally. So the cloudy day tally should be viewed as a “work in progress”.

Here’s a look at the greatest number of cloudy days in January dating back to 1894:

Greatest number of days in January with 0% of possible sunshine

1998 — 20

1932 — 16

1969 — 16

2017 — 16

2020 — 16

2021 — 16

1963 — 15

2023 — 14 (the tally so far, through the months first 23 days)

1914 — 14

1992 — 14

1911 — 13

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