A Fairly Typical March
By Russell Russ

A summary of March weather as recorded at Norfolk’s National Weather Service
Cooperative Weather Observer Station, Norfolk 2 SW, by the Great Mountain Forest
Corporation.
The month's high temperature of 50 degrees was observed on March 26 and the low of
12 degrees was observed on March 30. The average temperature this month was 30.5
degrees, .2 degrees above the March average.
The total precipitation recorded was 5.94 inches, 1.49 inches above normal. The
snowfall total for the month was 9.9 inches, 8.8 inches below normal. We can see some
big snow producing nor'easters during the month of March, but not this year. The largest
snowstorm this month actually started on the last day of February and continued into
March 1, dumping 6.5 inches of snow in Norfolk.
The station managed to keep snow on the ground the entire month of March. The snow
cover ranged from a high of 21 inches (a season high) on March 1 to a low of 2 inches
on March 31.
A snow core sample measured on March 4 showed that there was 5.7 inches of water
sitting on the ground in the form of ice and snow. Another one measured on March 18
produced 4.6 inches of water. Snow cores are routinely done throughout the winter to
measure the amount of frozen precipitation that is on the ground. The National Weather
Service is very interested in these figures, which help determine the need for flood
watches and warnings should there be a rapid warm-up or large rain event.
The snowfall total for this winter season (November through March) was 79.1 inches,
which is 9.4 inches below normal. The snowfall recorded for 2008 (January through
March) is 55.0 inches, 7.0 inches below normal, but the total precipitation recorded thus
far for 2008 is 18.16 inches, which is 5.96 inches above normal.