Dave_Osterberg's Blog

Wow, the numbers are out, and it looks like a very odd winter indeed. According to NOAA the average temperature around the US and the world was the coolest since 2001. Around the US it was the 54th coolest winter since records began in 1895. Not only were temps above normal, but precipitation was as well. In fact mountain snowpack was 150% abover average in a large part of the west. The northeast winter was the fifth wettest on record, while parts of New England had their second wettest. There are many areas which posted their all time record snow totals. Among them were Concord, NH, Burlington, VT., and Montreal, Canada. But not everyone benefitted from this winter precip. Even though the southeast was average for rainfall overall, the drought continues.  As of the end of February, 2/3 of the SE remained in some type of drought, with more than 25% of it in extreme to exceptional drought. It will be interesting to see what happens this spring, but there will likely be some flooding up north and out west due to the heavy snowpack.