January weather history is chock full of major winter storms. So let’s take a quick break from that to highlight another weird weather event that happened during the month of last month.
January 7 is a great day to do that. First, Tropical Storm Denise flooded La Réunion, a French island about 700 kilometers east of Madagascar, on January 7 to 8, 1966, 59 years ago. But this was no ordinary soak. The Foc-Foc reporting station measured 18 inches of rain in 12 hours and 71.8 inches in 24 hours, both world record precipitation rates for those time periods. That’s more rain in 24 hours than Miami averages in a year (67.41 inches).
This volcanic island in the southern Indian Ocean is known for its extreme rainfall, with moist winds from tropical cyclones lifting through the mountains. It also holds the world record rainfall of 72 hours (154.72 in) and 96 hours (194.33 in), both from Cyclone Gamede in late February 2007.
Seventeen years ago today, it was a tornado in an unusual location for early January that was dazzling. It happened when an outbreak of 48 tornadoes struck parts of Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin on January 7, 2008. Two tornadoes ripped through Kenosha County, Wisconsin. Previously, only one other January tornado had been documented in Wisconsin since 1950.
One of these was rated EF3 because it razed one house to the ground. Fortunately, no one was killed, but fifteen were injured along the nearly 11-mile trail. The combination of tornado damage bordering a nearby partially frozen pond in the photo below is something I won’t soon forget.
This was yet another reminder that tornadoes can and will happen at any time of year if conditions are right. Even in January. Even in the upper Midwest.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at Weather.com and has been covering national and international weather reports since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite subjects. Contact him Blue sky, X (formerly Twitter) And Facebook.
