"Year Without A Winter": Meteorological Winter Warmest on Record In Vermont, February Super Toasty

The just ending "Year Without A Winter" in Vermont
featured record warm temperatures, and a serious lack
of snow and lake ice. This rather springlike photo
was take January 4 at St. Albans Bay, Vermont. 

Meteorological winter in Vermont ended Thursday on an uncharacteristic note: It was kinda cold.

Not so for the winter as a whole. Meteorological winter - the period between December 1 and February 29 - was easily the warmest on record in Vermont. At least as measured in Burlington. 

Results in other Vermont towns may vary, but it was definitely among the very warmest, if not the warmest everywhere in the Green Mountain State. 

By any measure, it was toasty. The average temperature for the three months in Burlington was 30.7 degrees or 0.6  degrees above the previous record of 30.1 degrees in 2015-16.

The cloudy nature of most of the winter made the average overnight lows insanely warm.  Cloudy skies tend to keep nights warmer in general. While average high temperatures for this winter were only second warmest on record, overnight lows were by far the warmest. 

The average minimum temperature for the winter was 24.3 or 1.8 degrees above the previous record of 22.5 degrees in 2017-17.  That's a wide margin to break a record when you're including so many days. 

The warm winter means that each of the top four warmest winters in Burlington have happened since 2015-16.  Number 5 was recent, too as it was in 2001-02.  I can really see a climate trend there. 

Here are some other stats that really show how insane this "Year Without A Winter"   

--- This was only the second winter that failed to go below 0, and it had the warmest minimum, which was 3 degrees on January 22

--- Only 29 out of 91 days in Burlington failed to get above freezing.

---Just 19 days were cooler than average. Note that this is the "new" climate-change influenced average that is warmer than the way winters used to be. 

-- Only three days had six or more inches of snow on the ground. Thirty-four days had absolutely no snow on the ground. 

It's not just Burlington. It appears dozens of cities in the Northern Plains, Great Lakes region, parts of the Northeast and a swath of southern Canada will have also had their warmest winters on record. 

FEBRUARY

The month of February was certainly an enthusiastic part of the record warm winter of 2022-23.  The mean temperature in Burlington for the month was 30.2 degrees, which was 7.3 degrees warmer than the "new" average and third warmest February on record at Burlington. 

As part of all that re-writing of weather records by recent warm winters and springs, four days saw record highs in Burlington. The high on February 27 was the third warmest day on record for anytime in February.

Most other reporting stations in Vermont, including Rutland, Montpelier and St. Johnsbury, were all at least 7 degrees warmer than average for February. 

With just 0.66 inches of precipitation, it was also the eighth driest February on record.  Other Vermont weather stations were even more arid. Montpelier managed just 0.36 inches of precipitation. St. Johnsbury had 0.37 inches.  Pretty much everybody in Vermont had less than an inch of precipitation during February. 

At least February was somewhat sunnier than the near-constant overcast, fog and gloom of December and January. 

LOOKING AHEAD

Of course, we can't determine ahead of time how March and spring as a whole will play out. We do know March is coming in like a lamb.  The first week of the month will be far warmer than average, and not stormy at all. There might be some light precipitation here and there, but nothing substantial until at least next weekend.

Looking much further ahead to next winter, I almost guarantee we won't see a repeat.  It's hard to get that warm in the winter, even with climate change. I don't know whether next winter will be on the cold or mild side, but it won't be as warm as this one was. 

We'll probably even go below zero. Imagine that. 

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