November saw the first big storm of the season, Penacook had a 10 inches with wet snow that brought extensive damage to trees and power distribution. We lost the main shade tree in our back yard, a Norway Maple the previous owners planted for some quick shade.
December was much milder and quieter, with the largest event bringing only 1.5". Snow cover held on through the 24th, so Christmas was not white. Activity picked up a bit in January, snow cover returned on the 3rd with the first of several small events. The "Blizzard of 2015" wasn't here, we had only 8.5", but much greater snowfalls weren't far away.
A cold January brought 7 days of sub-zero low temperatures and 9 more from 0-10 days. January 2014 had 6, and except for the common -11.2°F in both years, 2015 was colder.
A cold February brought 12 more sub-zero lows and 11 0-10 days (including three days with 0.1°F lows).
March brought 2 more sub-zero lows and 4 0-10 days. Relief, but with the high temperature for the month being only 55.7, it was still cold.
Here are the extreme low and high temperatures for February in my records:
Year min
lowmax
lowmin
highmax
high2004 -7.9 30.9 21.4 53.1 2005 0.1 30.3 19.2 55.3 2006 0.7 37.2 19.4 59.2 2007 -1.8 26.4 14.0 44.8 2008 -7.9 33.1 21.6 47.7 2009 -0.6 33.8 15.9 56.9 2010 8.8 37.8 26.9 47.1 2011 -8.4 33.4 17.8 60.5 2012 9.2 30.3 19.2 52.6 2013 4.7 32.2 19.4 51.4 2014 -5.9 29.0 21.6 51.4 2015 -16.6 19.4 7.0 37.5
2015 wins in all four cases vs. the second most extreme:
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 | 6.8 | 23 | 2.1 | 2 | 16.8 | 97 | 31.3 | 529 | 10.3 | 440 | 0 | 11 | ||||
Fairhaven MA | 2.2 | 1 | 0.3 | 0 | 23.2 | 89 | 35.8 | 509 | 18.9 | 325 | ||||||
Marlboro MA | 4.1 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 37.7 | 147 | 45.9 | 806.5 | 6 | 494 | 0.2 | 15 | ||||
Pepperell MA | 10.8 | 35 | 1.5 | 19 | 40.4 | 171 | 52 | 812 | 8.1 | 547 | 0.6 | 20 | ||||
Poland Spring ME | 17.1 | 49 | 6 | 52 | 38.9 | 209 | 29.3 | 702 | 2.7 | 510 | 2.8 | 17 | ||||
Bow NH | 15.5 | 57 | 3.8 | 83 | 24.1 | 160 | 47.4 | 723 | 6.6 | 652 | 2.3 | 114 | ||||
Bristol NH | 13.3 | 38.5 | 10.6 | 183.5 | 21.6 | 205.5 | 36.5 | 636 | 4.9 | 444 | 4.2 | 12.3 | ||||
Penacook NH | 12.7 | 38.5 | 3.8 | 53 | 20.4 | 134 | 37.2 | 567 | 4.1 | 410 | 1.5 | 12.5 | ||||
Mt. Mansfield VT | 1.2 | 0 | 31.7 | 149 | 25 | 777 | 33 | 1468 | 42.6 | 2039 | 21.7 | 2582 | 19.3 | 2371 |
Location | Snowfall | Depth Days | Persistence Quotient |
---|---|---|---|
Collinsville CT | 67.3 | 1102 | 16.4 |
Fairhaven MA | 80.4 | 924 | 11.5 |
Marlboro MA | 94.9 | 1475.5 | 15.5 |
Pepperell MA | 113.4 | 1604 | 14.1 |
Poland Spring ME | 96.8 | 1539 | 15.9 |
Bow NH | 99.7 | 1789 | 17.9 |
Bristol NH | 91.1 | 1519.8 | 16.7 |
Penacook NH | 79.7 | 1215 | 15.2 |
Mt. Mansfield VT | 174.5 | 9386 | 53.8 |
Name | Location |
---|---|
Dennis Bollea | Fairhaven MA |
Wayne Cotterly | Poland Spring ME |
Paul Hansen | Marlboro MA |
Jim Hilt | Bow NH |
Andrew Plona | Collinsville CT |
Paul Venditti | Pepperell MA |
Ric Werme | Penacook NH |
I think depth days is a great statistic, and I'm surprised that it is catching on slowly outside of the NE Weather Spotters 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.