A late-night television host might say, "It's colder than a mother-in-law's love."


Heartier upstate New Yorkers might shrug and say: "So? It's January." The mercury will hover around zero this week, but the wind chill index is expected to plunge well down around minus 30, prompting the National Weather Service to post a wind chill advisory for the Capital Region through this afternoon. Wednesday will see a brief warm-up, and then the icebox door will open again for Thursday.


This will be the coldest period since just before Christmas, when the mercury dipped to -5 on Dec. 20 and -1 the following day. While January has seen some warm temperatures, the daily average through Sunday would have only placed the month as the 10th warmest on record. The expected cold snap would drop the monthly average back into the normal range.


Earlier this month, the jet stream was bringing storms from the Pacific Ocean across southern California and then up the Mississippi River Valley and over the Great Lakes, bringing southerly winds to the East Coast. Now, the jet stream has shifted and is diving straight from northern Canada, bringing cold air.


There is a brighter side. While the air is colder, the storms riding along the jet stream don't have nearly as much moisture. These so-called Alberta Clipper systems pass through quickly, as Monday's did. What snow they do bring is the light, fluffy kind that quickly blows away.


Further west and north, however, the colder weather came with a healthy dose of lake-effect snow. Rochester awoke Monday to as much as 7 inches of snow, and Buffalo recorded up to 5 inches. With the snow falling steadily Monday, up to 18 inches were expected to accumulate by this morning, with some higher-elevation areas getting 2 feet.


Until Sunday night, Rochester had received much less snow than usual at this time of the season - a mere 27 inches, compared with 62 inches by mid-January 2004. Likewise, Syracuse had measured a paltry 30 inches and Buffalo had just 32 inches.


Albany was on the charts with only about 24 inches of snow.


Winter, which meteorologists consider to be the months of December, January and February, is more than half over. And Groundhog Day is just two weeks away.








Bruce A. Scruton can be reached at 454-5462 or by e-mail at bscruton@timesunion.com. This report also includes reporting from the Associated Press.