In-Depth Weather: Winter season of historic proportions

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – You know we have not had much winter weather this season. However, it is always difficult to put this into perspective on how unusual this winter season has been. But we are going to try!

This past month of January the temperature was above normal. And if you look at the number of days that we had above average temperature readings, almost the entire month was above normal. In addition, if you add up all of these temperatures day by day, the average monthly temperature was 6.6 degrees above normal. You would think that would change for the month of February. No, it has not. Including the record high temperature today (65 degrees), we are still running 6 degrees above normal.

Another way to look at this is the seasonal snowfall over past years. If you go back five or six years ago, the last time that we had above average snowfall at the Rochester airport was the 2017-2018 season.  Since then, each and every winter season has produced below normal snowfall. However, that is nothing compared to the small amount of snow for this season. When we compare the least slowest winter seasons going back will to the 1920s, this year stands at only at 21 inches of snow. When you compare the history of seasonal snowfall you have to go back 90 years for the last time we had this little amount of snow.

Obviously, we could still make up some of this snowfall deficit in the coming weeks. But at this juncture, it is safe to say that we have history in the making .