BUFFALO, N.Y. — Winters in Western New York are long. It’s one thing to think about getting 100 inches of snow in a season, but it’s another thing to realize that snow can accumulate anytime between Halloween and Mother’s Day most years.
If you’re not a winter lover, you yearn for those sparse days in January and February when temperatures climb into the 40s, 50s, maybe even 60s. It never lasts long, but at least we get a little break.
That little mini thaw never came this winter, at least not until this week. So if this season has felt particularly relentless to you, you may actually be onto something.
Over the last 20 years, the highest temperature reached in the month of January, on average, is 55 degrees. A handful of those 20 Januarys managed to get at least one day in the 60s. The averages are similar for February: an average peak temperature of 53 degrees with several Februarys reaching the 60s at least once.
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This year? January’s peak temperature was just 44 degrees. February had only gotten to 40 degrees as of Tuesday (February 23). Clearly, we’ve missed out!
If we break temperatures this year down week-by-week, it gets even easier to see why some may feel like this winter has been a tough one. Nearly every week since the beginning of January got progressively colder and snowier. Most areas in Western New York have spent close to three weeks straight with at least 6 inches of snow on the ground.
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Of course, many celebrate this kind of pattern. It’s been a couple of winters since we’ve had consistently good conditions for skiing and snowboarding, snowmobiling, sledding, and even ice fishing.
Whether you’re a fan of this year’s winter offerings or not, it looks like we’ve finally climbed out of the core of that brutally cold pattern. But that certainly doesn’t mean we can brush off the cold, snowy weather for good. At least not just yet.
New episodes of Heather’s Weather Whys are posted to the WGRZ YouTube channel every Wednesday evening.
If you have a weather question for me to answer, send it to heather.waldman@wgrz.com or connect with me on Facebook or Twitter.
