Eighth Snowiest on Record

By Russell Russ

Old Man Winter made his presence known in December, established himself in January and decided to stick around through February. No temperature records were broken, but it was a cold month. And then there was the snow. Again not record shattering, just regular and steady snowfalls throughout most of the month. Our snow-on-ground levels ranged from six inches early in the month to 26 inches mid-month to 21 inches at month’s end. With just a handful of days with temperatures above freezing, the snow that came never left.

February’s low temperature of minus 2 degrees was observed on both February 7 and 12. The high of 47 degrees was observed on February 22. With an average mean temperature of 20.3 degrees, it was 1.6 degrees colder than normal. February is typically when we get most of our lowest temperature readings of the year, and while we did get several mornings with below-zero temperatures this month, no super low temperatures were recorded. For comparison, February 2013 was two degrees warmer than normal, and February 2012, our second warmest February on record, was eight degrees above average.

The total precipitation recorded for the month was 4.16 inches, 0.52 inches above normal. The monthly snowfall total of 35.7 inches was 15.3 inches above normal. It was our eighth snowiest February on record. Our snowiest February was in 1969, when we measured 52.4 inches. Nearly half of this month’s snowfall came during the February 13-14 storm when 14.5 inches was measured at the station. For comparison, February 2013 was nearly six inches above average for snowfall, but February 2012 was 14.5 inches below average.

This January and February snowfall total of 61.5 inches was 19.8 inches above normal and 27.7 inches more than this period last year. The snowfall total for this winter season, October through February, was 79 inches. This was 12.5 inches above normal and 23.3 inches more than last winter.

Weather observations are recorded by the Great Mountain Forest Corporation at Norfolk’s National Weather Service Cooperative Weather Observer Station, Norfolk 2 SW.