February, 2021 Turning Out Wintry, But How About A Really Frigid Trip Down Memory Lane

Read it and freeze. Some daily 
temperature records in Burlington 
from February, 1979.  
Now THAT'S cold!

 It looks like we are in an extended spell of winter weather here in Vermont. It sort of snuck up on us. 

Though January was warm, it hasn't even made it as high as 40 degrees for most of us since New Year's Eve. Spoiler: It's also not going to get to 40 any time soon. 

Snowfall, as noted yesterday, is catching up, closer to normal, too. Though I still don't see any blockbusters coming, we have numerous chances for additional snow coming up. 

Today might actually give us a mini surprise. That storm that is dumping a burst of heavy snow from Virginia to coastal New England is missing us, but it might influence a smaller weather system coming in from the west. 

Instability with a cold front combined with a little band of moisture riding north from that departing coastal storm could trigger a burst of heavier snow for a couple hours this evening. Light snow will come in this afternoon before that potential burst. 

We're only getting one to three inches of snow out of this, for most of us, but still. 

As it stands now, two other small snowfalls, one on Tuesday the other on Friday, seem to be in the cards 

Temperatures will stay at or a little below normal too.

So this won't be Vermont's Year Without A Winter after all. 

For those of you unhappy about the relative chill and the snow, February in Vermont can be much worse. In fact, it has been much worse. 

So, in the spirit of being thankful for what you've got, I'll take you back to two awful Februaries in the disco era - 1978 and 1979 to show you what harsh Vermont winter weather is really like.

In New England, February, 1978 is famous for the Blizzard of '78, which happened on this date (really February 6-7). It was easily among the most destructive storms in New England history.

Thousands of cars got trapped on Route 128 near Boston. Even worse, there was massive coastal destruction from a huge storm surge and battering waves.  The storm killed roughly 100 people and caused about $2 billion in damage (the figure adjusted for inflation to current levels).

Here in Vermont, the Blizzard of '78 mostly just hit southern parts of the state. I remember being a 15 year old at the time and having two feet of snow dumped on my home in West Rutland, Vermont in just 12 hours.

I remember a lot of wind, too.

However, in Vermont, the real drag of February, 1978 was the persistent cold. In Burlington, 17 days that month got to zero or below.  The "warmest" day of the month reached just 33 degrees. The month ended up with an average temperature of 9.5 degrees. To this day, February, 1978 is the fourth coldest February on record. 

If the February 1978 cold was unrelenting, the next February was unbearable. 

In February, 1979, we endured easily among the top 5 worst cold spells of the 20th century. The big hit #1 song on the charts that month was "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," by Rod Stewart, but surely no Vermonter was sexy that month, given how many layers of clothes we had to wear.

In Burlington, the temperature fell below zero on February 9 and stayed below zero before briefly rising above zero on the afternoon of February 12.  Those couple hours of above zero air was a major relief, considering it had gotten down to 30 below that morning in Burlington.  That tied the record for the coldest reading on record for any date.

Late in the afternoon of the 12th, it went below zero again and stayed there until the afternoon of the 18th.  

From February 9 to 20, Burlington, had this impressive streak of morning lows: -16, -25, -27, -30, -17, -19, -17, -6, -19, -25, -13, -5 

During this cold wave, St. Johnsbury had six consecutive mornings at or under minus 25 degrees, bottoming out at 32 below on February 12. In West Burke, eight of the ten days between February 10 and 19 were at or under 30 below.  The "warmest" night in this streak was -21. 

February, 1979 would have easily been the coldest month on record for Vermont had it not been for an extremely welcome week-long thaw at the end of the month.  

By the way, we have a much more recent example of a miserable February: 2015.  Despite the spate of very warm winters we've had over the past decade, February 2015 does stand out It's the second coldest on record in Burlington. A total of 17 days that month got below zero. 

All this is to say, yeah, it's wintry, it's kinda cold, but really, don't be a wimp. This could be so much worse.