February put the finishing touches on a typical El Nino Winter here in Central Texas. With persistent below normal temperatures, this past February ended as one of the coldest February’s on record in every major temperature category.
In fact, there were only two days during the entire month that we had above normal temperatures! Don’t feel bad if you were like me and stayed inside where it was nice and warm… This was not the weather I bargained for when I moved to Texas! Another angle to look at is the number of days in which we had temperatures at or below freezing.
Yup, that chart is right, half of the days in February recorded temperatures at or below the freezing mark! Now my family in Michigan can’t really give me a hard time… Ok, maybe they can…Now just because February was really cold, it doesn’t mean that it was all bad. In fact, just over 80% of you said that you liked the snow we received in February, and I’m with you. If it’s going to be this cold, it might as well snow right? Well for Central Texas standards, we got a lot of snow. There were two significant snow events that we saw. On February 11 and 12 more than a foot of snow feel in the DFW Metroplex, while a more meager number fell in Central Texas (about half an inch was recorded in Waco.) However, on February 23 a winter storm headed right for us, leaving a swath of 3 to 6 inches of snow from San Angelo through Central Texas and into East Texas. That system brought 3.1” of snow to Waco. In total, the 3.6” of snow that fell at the Waco Airport in February is the 4th most all time in Waco.
I loved seeing all the pictures all of you sent in! Thank you very much for that. We tried to use as many of them as we could on the air. Since the end of February also marks the end of meteorological winter, let me recap this past winter for you. Just like the month of February, this past winter was among the coldest in every major temperature category.
With 45 freezes in December, January, and February, we were only two shy of being in the top 10 for most freezes in a season. The 3.7” of snow, and 10.30” of precipitation this winter were among the top, but not quite in the top 10. While this winter might not have been the most fun to be outside in, it should help out a lot with our drought conditions come summer time. If you remember, we started this past year coming out of the 10th driest winter on record, and we all know how bad our drought got in 2009.
