A couple months ago, following three months of unseasonal warmth and 108.7 centimeters of snowfall, Sault Ste. Marie residents were wondering if the Winter of 2006-2007 would ever arrive.
Environment Canada reports 203 cm of snow since then, including 116.5 cm for February, as well as abnormal cold.
Our 320-cm accumulation over the past five months, October through February, is 70 cm above our 30-year norm and already 17 cm above the typical 303-cm snowfall we receive in seven months, October through April.
Winter traditionally has another 52 cm of snow in store for us, including 35 cm this month and a further 17 cm in April.
Six new records were established in February, two each for 24-hour snowfall, precipitation and rain.
Sixty-year accumulation records were shattered Feb. 4 and Feb. 7 for snowfall and total precipitation; the water equivalent of all types of precipitation.
The city received 25 cm of snow on the 4th, nearly twice the former 12.8-cm record of 2003, and 15.8 cm on the 7th, more than 6 cm greater than the former 9.4-cm mark of 1988.
We had nearly 100 cm of snowfall through the first eight days of the month, more than twice our monthly norm, including six straight days of 7.5-cm-or-greater accumulation.
As well, 10.2 millimeters of total precipitation on the 4th topped the former high-water mark of 9.4 mm set in 1963 and 8.8 mm on the 7th surpassed the former 7.1 mm record of 1946.
Our 1.5 mm of rainfall on the 17th was triple the former 0.4 mm record of 1984 and 3.6 mm on the 22nd easily topped the 2.4 mm of 1981.
Eleven nights of temperatures exceeding -20, bottoming out at -29.0 on the 14th, our coldest night of the winter to date, resulted in below normal temperatures for only the second time in the past 21 months.
Our average overnight low of -17.6, our average afternoon high of -6.6, and our daily average temperature of -12.1 were all two degrees colder than the 30-year norm.
For those with short memories, we had a similar heavy snowfall accumulation in February 2006, 115 cm, the second straight year half our winter's snowfall had been dumped upon us in one month.
We have yet to experience any 30-or-lower teeth rattlers since the Winter of 2004-2005, when we had six such chillers.
March traditionally brings us afternoon highs of 0.9, overnight lows of -9.7, 34.8 cm of snow and 28 mm of rain.
