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Last month was 5th snowiest February in area
YOUNGSTOWN
Despite only three days with 3 or more inches of snowfall, last month ranks as the area’s fifth snowiest February on record.
And it looks as if we’ll get a decent amount of additional snow starting late tonight and ending Monday.
Overall, 23.4 inches of snowfall was recorded at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna, where the National Weather Service records official weather data for the Mahoning Valley.
The most snow for a February wasn’t that long ago — 36.3 inches in 2010.
The average snow accumulation in the area for February is 12.8 inches, according to the National Weather Service, which has weather data back to 1897 for the Mahoning Valley.
No snow fell five days last month, and another five had only a trace.
The major snow days were Feb. 9 with 5.1 inches, Feb. 5 with 4 inches and Feb. 18 with 3.8 inches. More than half of the snow last month fell on those three days.
By Monday, 5 to 7 inches of snow is forecast in Mahoning, Columbiana and southern Trumbull counties, and 3 to 5 inches in Mercer County and northern Trumbull County, said Eric Wilhelm, chief meteorologist for 21 WFMJ-TV.
It originally looked as if the area could get up to 10 inches, but that’s off the table now.
Customers flocked to the Giant Eagle in Austintown on Friday afternoon but not in anticipation of another round of snow.
Shoppers, making their usual grocery trips, were largely undaunted by the threat of another winter storm.
“We’re pretty used to this weather by now,” said Barbara Fechtel, adding that the forecast hadn’t prompted her to make any emergency purchases.
Jessica Murray said this weekend’s storm would be another routine event in a long, harsh winter.
“I’m not really preparing for it,” she said. “It comes and it goes, and you deal with it.”
Last month was also the 10th coldest on record for the area in February. The average temperature was 20.9 degrees, tied with 1980 for that No. 10 spot.
The average temperature for a typical February in the Valley is 28.6 degrees.
Seven of the 28 days last month had highs of at least 40 degrees while 13 of them had lows under 10 degrees. The coldest day of the month was Friday at 8 below, a record. The previous record low was minus 4 in 1934.
“We started the month well above the normal, then hit a cold stretch, then it got warmer and then a five-day cold stretch to finish the month,” said Brian Mitchell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland.
“It was an up-and-down month that you usually see in March,” he said. “February is relatively consistent with a gradual warm up. But that wasn’t the case this time.”
As Wilhelm put it: “It wasn’t the coldest or the snowiest, but we had some long cold stretches. Those cold stretches killed the averages because it was so cold.”SFlbContributor: Staff writer Tom McParland