Boston's Blizzards of 2015

Blizzards is now plural as the 4th major storm, and 2nd blizzard, of the year has just concluded.

It is a slow news day and nothing caught my eye today during my daily research so I'll take a minute to talk about the snow.  First for some numbers.

Here is the National Weather Service with some historical figures:

Seasonal Average = 41.3 inches

     Greatest Seasonal Snowfalls       Least Seasonal Snowfalls
         107.6 1995-1996                   9.0 1936-1937      
          96.3 1993-1994                  10.3 1972-1973
          89.2 1947-1948                  12.7 1979-1980
          85.1 1977-1978                  14.9 1994-1995
          83.9 1992-1993                  15.5 1988-1989
          77.2 1944-1945                  17.0 1931-1932
          64.9 1922-1923                  18.1 1985-1986
          63.0 1963-1964                  19.1 1990-1991
          62.7 1933-1934                  19.4 1946-1947
          61.8 1981-1982                  19.7 1920-1921

So the most snow Boston has recorded in its history for the entire season is 107.6 inches in the '95-'96 season.  That season saw many snow events spread out over the entire season.

What has happened in Boston this year?  95.7" with most of that falling in the last 3 weeks appears to move this year to the #2 slot.  That is the most snow ever in a 30 day period, the most for a February, and is nearly the most for any winter.  We've seen more snow the last 3 weeks than Chicago has ever seen for an entire winter.  Wow.  Even more snow is in the forecast with an event tomorrow that will bring a couple inches and another this weekend.

A big challenge is it isn't warming up in between events.  None of this is melting.  The real concern may be yet to come as this will all melt eventually.  It could be a very wet spring.

For me this is a winter wonderland.  I love it!  We'll be talking about the Blizzards of 2015 for the rest of our lives.  Awesome!

Happy snow day, Presidents Day, or whatever.

J.W. Gant

PS  The folks over at FiveThirtyEight have a great graph of what February looks like in historical context. Literally off the chart...

Love that graph!