January brought rain that washed my snow away, then more rain and a January thaw with temperatures in the 60s for me and 70s for Boston. A couple of minor storms mid-month restored snow cover again, but only until the end of the month. Cold air wasn't completely missing, I had a sub-zero morning in both December and January (and a 0.1°F morning).
The Canadian Maritime provinces often get a lot of snow, but this winter brought immobilizing snow to St. Johns. I haven't kept up with their season, but a storm that's missing us now in early February will bring them a lot more snow.
Here, February brought below average snowfall, a fair amount of rain, and another break in the snow cover. 2015/2016 in Penacook had less. I wonder how they did, I might check a Canterbury CoCoRaHS site. Overall, while it was warm, three above 50°F days were more than offset by five sub-zero lows. Two were cold enough to shut down my mini-split heat pump.
March (and April and May) featured bare ground for all but a few days. The only decent snowstorm was 6", and most of it melted the first day - I never bothered to run the snowblower.
May featured a polar outbreak that impacted most of the eastern US (and a warm ridge in the west that balanced things out). I had rain that changed to a little snow on May 9th. 43 years before, I lived in Massachusetts and enjoyed their biggest ever May snow storm, see 40 Years Ago: Massachusetts Snags a Memorable Snowfall in May Storm.
| 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 | |
| Ashland MA | 23.3 | 111 | 4 | 24 | 1.4 | 0 | 2.3 | 1 | 3.1 | 3 | ||||||
| Fairhaven MA | 0.1 | 0 | 12.4 | 24 | 2.8 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1.5 | 2 | ||||||
| Pepperell MA | 0.1 | 0 | 36 | 195 | 7.9 | 87 | 6.1 | 24 | 9.2 | 8 | 3.2 | 0 | ||||
| Bow NH | 0.5 | 0 | 23.9 | 132 | 9.4 | 172 | 10.9 | 218 | 10 | 64 | 1.1 | 0.5 | ||||
| Bristol NH | 4.2 | 4.1 | 20.2 | 73 | 17.1 | 224.5 | 14.8 | 298.5 | 7.6 | 30.5 | 0.7 | 0.2 | ||||
| Sutton Mills NH | 2.1 | 2.5 | 19.9 | 75.5 | 10.3 | 73 | 13 | 135.5 | 7.5 | 9.5 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | ||
| Location | Snowfall | Depth Days | Persistence Quotient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashland MA | 34.1 | 139 | 4.1 |
| Fairhaven MA | 16.8 | 29 | 1.7 |
| Pepperell MA | 62.5 | 314 | 5.0 |
| Bow NH | 55.8 | 586.5 | 10.5 |
| Bristol NH | 64.6 | 630.8 | 9.8 |
| Sutton Mills NH | 53.9 | 297 | 5.5 |
| Name | Location |
|---|---|
| Dennis Bollea | Fairhaven MA |
| Steve Gunn | Bristol NH |
| Jim Hilt | Bow NH |
| Jot Ross | Ashland MA |
| Paul Venditti | Pepperell MA |
| Ric Werme | Sutton Mills 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 consistently. (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.