December featured two large storms in the first half of the month, but then warm weather and rain melted nearly all of it, but the piles of shoveled and plowed snow provided a reminder of the storms.
January started out well above average, but then the bottom fell off the thermometer. Three cold snaps set new records throughout the region. Several places broke the old record by over 5 degrees. Mt. Washington reached -45F, two degrees from its all-time low. Here in Penacook our low for the month was -14F. We had eleven days with sub-zero readings and two days with a high a fraction of a degree above zero. Once the cold hit, only one day made it above freezing.
Blue Hill recorded two record low minima and four record low maxima during the month. The average temperature tied for third coldest January in their 119 year record.
Cold air is dry air. It's also heavy air and creates "cold air damming" that forces storms to the south. Penacook had only 6" of snow, but we ended the month with more snow on the ground than at the start.
February brought warmer temperatures, but one cold snap returned the area to sub-zero mornings. However, the storm track stayed south and Penacook had only slightly more snow than in January. Cape Cod and even North Carolina had more. Only a few days were above freezing, and those were dry, so the snow pack showed little melting until the last few days of the month.
Location | October | November | December | January | February | March | April | May | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Snow | SDD | Snow | SDD | Snow | SDD | Snow | SDD | Snow | SDD | Snow | SDD | Snow | SDD | Snow | SDD | |
Collinsville CT | 0.9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16.6 | 54 | 15.1 | 72 | 7 | 214 | 12.5 | 41.0 | ||||
N Berlin MA | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 85 | 7.8 | 58 | 5.7 | 99 | 11.5 | 30.0 | ||||
Fairhaven MA | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19.5 | 66 | 10.1 | 33 | 5.8 | 20 | 8.9 | 20.0 | ||||
Marlboro MA | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22.1 | 64 | 9.3 | 44 | 4 | 70 | 11.2 | 33.0 | ||||
Pepperell MA | 0.7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21.8 | 111 | 10 | 107 | 7.1 | 178 | 12.6 | 34.0 | 0.1 | 0 | ||
Poland Spring ME | 0.3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31.6 | 133 | 2.2 | 23 | 14.4 | 111 | 6 | 21.0 | 1.4 | 2 | ||
Derry NH | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23.2 | 108 | 8.6 | 95 | 5 | 131 | 10.8 | 25.0 | ||||
Penacook NH | 0.7 | 1 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 28.5 | 157 | 6.1 | 108 | 7.2 | 213 | 7.6 | 25.0 | ||||
Charlestown RI | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19.6 | 56 | 16.1 | 62 | 4.1 | 36 | 9.6 | 23.0 | ||||
Woonsocket RI | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21.1 | 85 | 8.7 | 34 | 2.4 | 11 | 10 | 24.8 | ||||
Mt. Mansfield VT | 4.2 | 19 | 18.5 | 249 | 61 | 1241 | 33.5 | 1880 | 36.3 | 2324 | 32.7 | 2795.0 | 13.8 | 2303 | 10.5 | 461 |
Location | Snowfall | Depth Days | Persistence Quotient |
---|---|---|---|
Collinsville CT | 52.1 | 381 | 7.3 |
N Berlin MA | 47 | 273 | 5.8 |
Fairhaven MA | 44.3 | 139 | 3.1 |
Marlboro MA | 46.6 | 211 | 4.5 |
Pepperell MA | 52.3 | 430 | 8.2 |
Poland Spring ME | 55.9 | 290 | 5.2 |
Derry NH | 47.6 | 359 | 7.5 |
Penacook NH | 50.6 | 504 | 10.0 |
Charlestown RI | 49.4 | 177 | 3.6 |
Woonsocket RI | 42.2 | 154.8 | 3.7 |
Mt. Mansfield VT | 210.5 | 11272 | 53.5 |
Name | Location | Email name | Email domain |
---|---|---|---|
Dennis Bollea | Fairhaven MA | 76624.2745 | compuserve.com |
A Cadoret | Woonsocket RI | cumulus | att.net |
Wayne Cotterly | Poland Spring ME | cotterly | pivot.net |
Matthew Douglas | Milton MA | mdouglas | attbi.com |
Milton-BHO MA | |||
Todd Gross | N Berlin MA | tgross | whdh.com |
Watoquadoc Hill MA | |||
Paul Hansen | Marlboro MA | paulh01 | comcast.net |
Jim Hilt | Derry NH | jimhilt | yahoo.com |
Andrew Plona | Collinsville CT | nwconnecticut | comcast.net |
Chris Seeber | Charlestown RI | cseeber | cox.net |
Paul Venditti | Pepperell MA | paulvenditti | prodigy.net |
Ric Werme | Penacook NH | ric | werme.8m.net |
I think depth days is a great statistic, and I'm surprised that it is catching on slowly outside of the wxobs-sne mail list. I never expected that the NWS would embrace it quickly, but I had hoped that TV meteorologists would start using it, in monthly summaries, if nothing else. It would be nice if ski areas would use it, but they may not wish to if they are not likely to be #1 consistantly. (And if only one area reports depth days, it would not be a good comparative statistic.) The University of Vermont has graphs of snow depths at Stowe through many seasons.