Chuck Otte
County Extension Agent Retired
Just like January, February 2025 was cold and snowy. Both colder than normal and snowier than normal. It was a month of two different extremes however.The average daily high for February was 38.3, 6.3 degrees below normal. The average overnight low was 19.4, 3.0 degrees below normal. This gave us a monthly mean temperature of 28.9, 4.6 degrees below normal. Not a record, but noticeably colder than the past three unusually warm Februaries.
The highest temperature for the month was the afternoon high of 71 on February 25th. The lowest temperature for the month was the morning low just five days earlier, the 20th, when the thermometer dipped down to -8 degrees. We had seven mornings with lows below zero. We also had two days (18th and 19th) when the afternoon high never reached 10 degrees. The coldest February on record was in 1979 when the monthly mean temperature was 17.6. The warmest February was in 1954 with a monthly mean temperature was 46.3. The second warmest February was just last year, February 2024, when we had a monthly mean temperature of 45 degrees, over 15 degrees warmer than this year.
There were multiple temperature records set or tied in February. The low of -3 on the 13th tied the record low for that date, first set in 1980. The low of -8 on the 20th broke the old record of -1 which was set in 1978. The low of -7 on the 21st also broke a record set in 1978, that record low was -2. Three days also set new record low, high temperatures. The high of 2 on the 18th broke the old record of 17 set in 1978. The high of 8 on the 19th broke the old record low high of 23 set in 2019, and the high of 13 on the 20th broke the record of 20 set in 1966.
Through the first three weeks of February cold weather prevailed. For those three weeks the average temperature was 23.1 degrees, which if it had continued for the entire month, would have made February the 5th coldest February on record. However, the last week of February showed a noticeable improvement with an average temperature of 46.1, essentially double that of the first three weeks. These unseasonably warmed temperatures pulled the month average up high enough to keep it out of the record books!
February brings us the end of meteorological winter. Astronomical spring doesn’t start until March 20th however. With January and February being well below normal there is a natural tendency to assume that the winter season was well below normal as well. Winter 2024-25 was below normal, but a much warmer than normal December kept it from being record setting. In fact the average winter temperature (1991 - 2020) is 31.9 degrees and the winter we just finished was 30.7 degrees.
Winters are becoming warmer however. The warmest winter was the winter of 1991-92 with an average winter temperature of 37.9. However, three of the five warmest winters on record have been since 2005 and five of the seven warmest winters have been since 2005. The coldest winters go back to the cold spells we had in the late 1970s. The winter of 1978-79 is the coldest with a winter average temperature of 19.1. The winter immediately before that, 1977-78 was the second coldest winter with a seasonal average temperature of 20.9.
While we did receive above average snow for February, much of that arrived as very dry snow in cold conditions. Liquid precipitation for the month was 0.19 inches, well below the average of 1.10 inches. Thanks to a wetter than normal January though, year to date we are still above average with 1.99 inches, compared to the average of 1.83 inches for the first two months of the year. Milford Lake Corps of Engineers Office reported 7 inches of snow for the month, above the average for February of 4.7 inches. Season to date we have received 25.2 inches of snow, above our seasonal average of 18 inches.
March marks the start of meteorological spring on the 1st and astronomical spring on the 20th (the day when we have equal daylight and darkness.) Average daily high temperatures in March improve from 50 on the 1st to 62 on the 31st. Average morning lows start the month below freezing at 26 but by the end of the month have warmed to 39. The latest in the year that we’ve ever had below zero temperatures is March 15th (1975). Record high temperatures for the month generally range in the 80s. March is also a transition from our driest months of the year towards our wetter months. Average March precipitation is 2.00 inches. While many years March is snowless, the long term average March snowfall is 3.1 inches and some heavy, and very wet, snowfalls have occurred in March.
Chuck Otte [email protected]
County Extension Agent, Retired