February was a month of superlatives. Only one day was warmer than normal, sixteen days were at least ten degrees cooler than normal and five days were at least twenty degrees colder than normal. The 20th was twenty-five degrees colder than normal and set a record low of 2 degrees.
All the monthly temperatures.
Last month was the third coldest February on record (only 1934 and 1885 were cooler) and the tenth coldest of any month, as shown on the graph above. The warmest February on record was only three years ago. Back in 2012 February was 17 degrees warmer than last month.
Winter wasn't as bad as February
A mild December somewhat balanced out the cool January and freezing February, so our meteorological winter wasn't nearly as extreme as you might think. Overall, winter 2014-15 tied with 1921-22 as the 37th coldest winter in Central Park since records began in 1869. Out west it was a completely different story, as more than 20 cities, including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City, had their warmest winters ever.
Today's forecast is looking pretty good. Thanks to a high pressure system we'll have mostly sunny skies and a high near 40 degrees. That's only five degrees cooler than normal! But everything turns to crap tomorrow and Wednesday. A low pressure system passing well to our north will try and drag a warm front across the region, but the cold ocean and the snow-covered ground will cause that front to stall on the ground. Above the front there should be plenty of warm air and moisture and will bring a lovely sequence of snow changing to freezing rain, then rain from Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday morning. A reinforcing shot of cold air will turn that precipitation back to a couple inches of snow on Wednesday night.
The cold continues on Thursday and Friday as both days will have highs only around freezing. It is unclear whether the snow will extend into Thursday. The Weather Channel's ten-day forecast, though, does have us returning to near-normal temperatures, which for early March means highs in the mid 40s and lows in the low 30s.
