Winter Absent in December, Arrives in January

Lead picture from January 29, 2022 courtesy of Anne D'Iorio from Holbrook, NY.

Despite settling into a calmer and relatively warmer pattern heading into mid-late February, it was a wild stretch of weather over the past two months. Early on this winter, it seemed as though winter would not show up given the unusually warm and dry December we experienced. However, things rapidly changed not long after we rang in the New Year.

December 2021 was simply a desolate month for snow lovers. Persistent mild air combined with no real sources of moisture led to temperatures reaching 4 – 7 degrees above normal with barely any wintry precipitation. This meant many days and even nights significantly above freezing. The Mid-Atlantic regularly warmed into the 60s, if not 70s, while New England spent many daylight hours in the 40s to even some 60s. The were only two notable cooldowns, between the 7th - 8th and 20th - 24th, these anomalies were up to 5 degrees below normal before rebounding. The first cold shot allowed for a brief clipper in New England that left upwards of 1-3” of snow. While this mainly impacted hillier areas, some cities with lower elevation like Hartford, CT were able to squeak out around 2”. A similar story unfolded on Christmas Eve with yet another 1-2” across the Connecticut River Valley, giving interior New England a White Christmas. Virtually no other I-95 city outside of New York saw measurable snow, and even Boston, MA was left nearly 9” below normal for the month.

As the ball dropped to start 2022, stubborn mild temperatures remained. Many were in the upper 40s to low 50s, and it stayed mild into the 2nd day of January before the pattern finally flipped. With temperatures finally cooling to near and below normal, several wintry systems crossed the region, even all the way down to southeastern Virginia. Indeed, the first such system was a southern based coastal storm that left up to a foot or more in parts of northern Virginia into southeastern Maryland. Not long after was a second coastal low on the 6th-7th that dropped several inches of snow further north, maxing out at 8-12” from Long Island into eastern Massachusetts.

Several minor, mostly snow events marked the middle of the month thanks to a stable supply of cold air masses. Nights fell into the teens or even single digits regularly, which itself was abnormal even by January standards. The 16th witnessed yet another widespread system that brought several inches of snow across Maryland and west into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Freezing rain mixed in too, leaving up to 0.10” of ice accretion. The most memorable storm in January was a massive nor’easter on the 28th-29th that brought accumulating snow from North Carolina into Maine and west into eastern PA. Many did not warm out of the 20s and even teens, making it rather cold storm and fluffier snow. The “jackpot” of heaviest snow was in southeast Massachusetts where totals exceed 2 feet in spots! Boston, MA recorded its highest calendar day snowfall on the 29th at 23.6” along with Islip, NY hitting a record one day total of 23.5” (two-day storm totals were 23.8” and 24.7” respectively). These weren’t the only places with heavy snow, as the Delmarva Peninsula and New Jersey coastline observed a foot or more from the storm! While there was virtually no mixing of other precipitation types, high winds particularly from the New Jersey shore and Long Island into Maine left substantially higher snow drifts, and lots of blowing snow even into the day after, not to mention downed trees and power outages.

Overall, January was not excessively cold but averaged 2 – 3.5 degrees below normal. However, snowfall was plentiful as most cities along the I-95 corridor saw above normal snow, including Richmond, VA who picked up just over a foot for the month. Boston, MA in particular more than doubled its usual snowfall for January. The extra snowfall helped many reach monthly precipitation normals in January. In contrast, all cities were depleted of snowfall in December with very little measurable snow from NYC on north. December was also the 2nd warmest December on record for much of the Northeast, with even Scranton, PA averaging nearly 40 degrees for the month.