January has unleashed a string of extreme weather events across the United States.
On Wednesday, up to four inches of rain fell in southeast Texas with reports of heavy flooding across the Austin and San Antonio areas.
Earlier this week, a state of emergency was declared in San Diego, California, after a violent storm dropped three inches of rain in three hours – the city’s fourth-wettest day since record-keeping began.
Across the Midwest and Northeast, a generally mild December was followed by a brutal January with record-cold temperatures, and the heaviest snow cover in 20 years after back-to-back storms. By the middle of the month, half of the Lower 48 was covered in snow after Arctic blasts swept the Plains to the Great Lakes, and from the south up through the northeast.
New York City saw its single biggest snowfall after a record drought (but it still amounted to less than two inches). On 15 January, the night of the Iowa caucuses, wind chill made temperatures feel like 35 degrees below zero in parts of the state.