Exactly as we’ve been predicting
for the past month, this
is turning out to be an exceptionally
dry February - one of
the driest on record in central
and eastern New York.
All those days at the beginning
of this month, when Montana
was consistently warmer
than Georgia and the Carolinas,
combined with the strong winds
last
Thursday, set into motion an
extraordinarily dry and sunny
weather pattern.
During the first 17 days of
February there’s been measurable
precipitation on only four
days, and with only a third of an
inch of precipitation, that’s
about 15percent of normal.
Even more remarkable is the
fact that we got little more than
a trace of snow for the month,
through Wednesday morning,
February 18.
Since we’ll miss most of the
precipitation as a series of storm
systems miss our area to the
north and to the south during
the upcoming week, there’s an
excellent chance that this will
turn out to be the least-snowiest
February ever recorded in our
area.
On Friday a storm system
will lift northward to Quebec,
and strong northwesterly winds
will bring colder air; with variable
cloudiness and a few snow
showers highs will be in the upper
20’s.
The northwest flow will also
reinforce the dry weather pattern,
with partly sunny skies
and highs in the mid-30’s on
Saturday.
As a storm system tracks well
to our south across the mid-Atlantic
states and out to sea to
the east of the Virginia coast on
Sunday, we’ll get intervals of
clouds and sunshine, a few snow
showers and highs from 25 to 30
degrees.
With a large upper-level
trough in place over eastern
Canada and a northwest flow at
the surface and aloft, skies will
be partly sunny on Monday and
Tuesday with highs in the low
30’s.
Mark Hanok is an Otegobased
meteorologist.
