WSET.com - ABC13Snow Drought by Matt Ferguson

With two thirds of the winter behind us you may be wondering where is all the snow that we normally expect?? Let's jump straight to the numbers. So far this winter we've received 8.2 inches of snow from several small storms. The greatest total from a single storm was 3 inches on December 16th, 2010. Otherwise we've nickeled and dimed our way up to the current total of 8.2 inches. To put this into prospective on average we receive 17.4 inches of snow each season. Therefore, we have less than 50 percent of average and are well over halfway through the winter. I thought it would be interesting to put these totals up against last year's (2009-2010) massive grand total of 32.8 inches. Last year being the 10th snowiest winter on record.

So what is the reason for below normal snowfall? The answer to this question is far from simple. Though a quick answer would be, since we currently have a La Nina (cooler than normal Pacific Ocean temperatures), this usually means below normal precipitation for our region.

But that does not represent the entire story. It was definitely cold enough especially during the first half of the winter. However during that period, with so much arctic cold and dry air flowing straight from Canada and gripping the eastern part of our country, it was difficult to get a storm system to develop along the Gulf Coast states (where our snowstorms usually develop). Keep in mind most major winter storms form where you have clashes in cold and warm air masses. Because of no Gulf storms, most of the snow we received during the early winter came from Alberta Clipper storms. These originating in the Pacific Ocean, then moving through Alberta Canada (hence the name), then riding the jet stream south into our region, bringing limited snow amounts.

In January it remained cold, but the storm track changed a bit. Storms began to develop across the deep South moving straight east (missing us to the south), then turning north along the Outer Banks (again missing us to the east), next hitting the major cities in Northeast with heavy snowfall. This pattern remained through the first two weeks of February, before more changes occurred. At this time, for the most part, the temperatures have remained at or above average and the storm track as been to our north. This pattern does not bring us much rain, much less snow.

With all this said it is not over yet. While the chances of major snowstorms decline with each passing day, we can still see snow through April and in some cases early May. Also keep in mind the Superstorm of March 12-13, 1993. This blizzard brought our region one to two feet of snow!