Jock,

This is because Excel recognizes the fictitious date 0 Jan 1900 and is
the number 0. There exists adequate reasoning behind this design
choice. For the time being, you can count the Jan dates excluding
blank cells with:

=SUMPRODUCT((MONTH(B$7:B$998)=1)*(B$7:B$998<""))

HTH
Kostis Vezerides

On Oct 15, 4:48 pm, Jock wrote:
Why does this:
=SUMPRODUCT(--(MONTH(B$7:B$998)=1))
return 992 when the entire column B is empty?
The other 11 permtations work as one would expect, but this particular one
counts 'blank' as January!
Any ideas?

tia
--
Traa Dy Liooar

Jock