February

February began much how January ended, with above normal temperatures for 4 of the first 5 days. Strong winds moved in with a storm system late on the 4th and a band of heavy snow dropped south through the region on the morning of the 5th, ushering in cooler air. Lake effect snow developed and continued into the 7th. Major accumulations occurred on the Tug Hill and many parts of the North Country were blanketed in heavy snow:

Radar image from 1 AM on the 6th (large file):

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Snow totals from the event:

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Click here for a detailed summary of what occurred on the 5th through the 7th. After the lake effect, we just turned quite chilly with a few snow showers and below normal temperatures from the 8th through the 13th. All stayed quiet here through the 17th. But on February 11-12, a massive blizzard buried parts of the Northeast Corridor. New York City set a snowfall record with 26.9", making it the biggest snowstorm on record at Central Park. Most of this snow was caused by a "mesoscale" band of snow that was only about 10 miles or so wide. Here's a radar image from New Jersey, and you can see the dark greens (heavy snow) extending into New York City.

Here's the Wikipedia article on the event.

Here are some links with snow totals and info from the event: Hudson Valley/Connecticut, New York City Metro, Massachusetts/Rhode Island, New Jersey/Eastern Pennsylvania

After this event, we had to wait until February 17th for big weather news. An extremely powerful cold front swept through CNY during the morning of the 17th. Strong, gusty winds funneled in very mild air for the 16th and morning of the 17th, pumping us into the 50s, and setting a record high on the 16th. The setup on the 17th looked like this. This cold front sent temperatures from the 50s from 8 AM into the low 30s by Noon and into the 20s by afternoon. Because of such a great dynamic setup and such a sharp temperature gradient, this front was accompanied by some record strong, gusty winds. Officially, Oneida County Airport only measured 52 mph, but gusts of 55-75 mph were common in CNY, both with the front itself and in the strong winds behind the front. In fact, we had reports of 80 mph in West Leyden, 95 mph at Saratoga, and even 143 mph in the Green Mountains of Vermont. More wind gusts from this event can be found here. More information on this event can be found from the NWS Albany.

Although some people were without power for almost a week after that event, the weather remained relatively quiet after the 17th. On the 23rd-24th, a weak clipper system brought a general light snow to much of CNY. Then on the 25th another clipper system and cold front swept through CNY. But this one had a lot more energy with it. So we squeezed out a significant amount of snow from it. About 1-4" fell south of the Thruway, but 6-12" fell in the North Country. The NWS Albany has a page devoted to this system as well. Behind this storm, some of the winter's coldest air moved in over us. We bottomed out, officially at -8 on the morning of the 27th. And a few snow showers pestered us to close out February.