We are now into the middle of January, a time that I like to call the mid point of winter. Whether you consider the months of December through February winter or whether you include November and March as well, January 15th will fall right in the middle. I thought I would take a moment to take a look back and how the winter is going so far.
First, as a reminder, our winter forecast was for above normal temperatures and near normal snowfall. It was a very fast start for snow. By December 17th we were already over 52” of snow for the season, a full six weeks ahead of last winter’s pace. Then the spickets turned off. Since that point we’ve had about 6” of snow and we are now actually close to normal in seasonal snowfall.
With all the snow early in the season our temperatures, not surprisingly, were below normal as well. But a mild stretch from late December and early January has pushed the average above normal. Overall since December first we are around 3 and a half degrees above normal for the winter as a whole.
So although we seem to be close to our winter forecast so far I think everyone will agree it has been full of extremes over the last 2 months. Whenever we do make those seasonal forecasts we do look to see if we can find some of those extremes (snowy start, record January warmth) within the winter season but this time around there were no signals to point to one part of the winter being snowier or warmer than any other.
Meanwhile, the Lake Effect Challenge has been sputtering the last few weeks since I haven’t had to mention ‘lake effect’ much on Y 94. We are at $16.50 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. However, it looks like we will be hearing the ‘cha ching” noise a bit in the next week. We are now under 1 month (29 days) until pitchers and catchers report and Dave Longley reminds me there are only 32 days until the Daytona 500.
