After a bit of light snow earlier today, it appears we are in for a cold, but tranquil end to a record breaking February. It’s been an incredible month of weather and hard to believe all the extreme cold and snow we’ve experienced since turning the page of the calendar a mere 25 days ago.

While the month isn’t quite over, there are a lot of statistics we can already review.

Snowy Month
The snow has been the most visible aspect of this month, but the cold is more noteworthy. Depending on the official measurement this morning, Portland will end up somewhere in the top 20 snowiest February’s on record, so although it might feel like a lot of snow has fallen, there are many other months with significantly more snow in the record books.

I sorted the chart below by February snow totals. This year we’ve had 33-34 inches of snow, not even in the top 10!

There has been measureable snow 14 of the past 25 days which is going put this February in 3rd place in terms of the number of days where a hundredth of an inch or more of snow occurred.

Portland missed a couple of potential storms which would have put the city much higher on the list of snowiest Februarys, but misses don’t count. It does illustrate how just 50 miles can make a big difference when it comes to snowfall. Many other climate sites around New England are having a much snowier month including Boston, Bangor and Providence, Rhode Island.

Although Portland hasn’t even reached 90 inches of snow yet this season, in Massachusetts Boston and Worcester have and here in Maine both Caribou and Bangor are in the century club.

Prolonged And Deep Cold
The snow is certainly impressive, but one of the reasons it’s so dramatic is because of the cold. Any meteorologist who has glanced at the record books for New England can quickly see February of 1934 stands out as a brutally cold month.

Many all-time cold readings, including, New Haven Connecticut, Boston, Providence, Rhode Island and even New York City were set in 1934. Mount Washington’s coldest all-time reading at 47 below zero was set in during the final days of January that year.

Yesterday’s 11 below zero in Portland was the coldest morning of the month and broke the record for the day by 4 degrees. The average temperature in Portland is currently running under that of 1934 so it’s almost a sure bet this is going to be the coldest February on record.

We have seen 12 days at or below zero this month and if we get one more, which is possible on Friday morning, then we will tie 1979 for the most such days.

March 2015
March begins on Sunday. March is most often a snowy and cold month here in southern and central Maine. One of the pieces of data I reviewed this morning was an average of several versions of the American Climate model.

This particular map still keeps the eastern part of the country below average through March. I suspect this will indeed be the case. At least the average for March is significantly warmer, especially by the end of the month.

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