When January is unusually warm at Grand Rapids, what typically happens to the February Temperature anomalies?

Looking at Grand Rapids temperature data back to 1892, and then sorting all Januaries that were in the top 1/3 warmest it should be noted that February turned out to be colder than normal (bottom 1/3 coldest) 50% of the time. I t was warmer than normal only 28.6% of those years. It should be noted that this frequency of cold verse warm February months, when January was warmer than normal has not changed much over time, that is the rate of cold /warm February outcomes has stayed about the same, even recently.

So what am I thinking will likely be the outcome this February? I am favoring a cold first week of February, which is strongly supported by just about all of the model guidance . What happens after that is a good question. The MJO becomes to weak to drive the Northern Hemisphere circulation by the second week in February. However, given how our weather this past fall and winter continues to go back and forth between cold and warm, I am thinking it will warm up mid to late February. I am favoring the CPC forecast actually. This shows equal chance, however I am thinking we will average near normal, which is what happened at Grand Rapids for Oct. , Nov. and Dec.

Looking at the forecast from the CFSv2 (CPC climate model) the first week of February looks to be colder than normal. (map from Tropical Tidbits).

The MJO forecast via the ECMWF suggests phase 3, which is cold for Michigan in February. That is shown by CPC temperature composites for the MJO which is below. Note we are already in Phase 3, but the MJO is forecast to weaken as we go through the first week of February. So the question becomes will it stay cold?

The map above shows the most likely temperature anomaly for a given phase of the MJO for the CONUS for January-March.

It does look like we will have a wintry start of February over Southwest Lower Michigan.