February 2015 and Winter 2014-2015 St. Cloud Weather Summary

"Little Darling, It's Been A Long Cold Lonely Winter" - George Harrison

February 2015 and Winter 2014-2015 Saint Cloud, MN, Weather Summary

Note: This is a summary of meteorological winter, which is defined as the three coldest months of the year (1 December through 28 February). Astronomical winter ends on the spring equinox, which will be on March 20 this year. That's the day when we get back to 12 hours of daylight. Also, note that the cold season can be used to refer to the part of the year when Minnesota can get snow (typically Oct-Apr, but can be longer) or the heating season (July 1-June 30).

February finally produced the most persistent cold St. Cloud had seen since November. The average February temperature at the St. Cloud Airport was 8.7°F, 8.3°F colder than the February average. Still, it was more than three degrees short of the 5.5°F February 2014 temperature, which ranked as the 9th coldest in St. Cloud records.

The cold was once again caused by a steady flow of air out of northern and north central Canada, with only a short break during February 6-10. Even when temperatures warmed temporarily, it was still caused by northwest flow, but Canada had temporarily run out of cold air. While readings were persistently cold (17 of the last 18 days of February were colder than average), extremes were few and far between. The high temperature did stay below zero on February 22, setting a record cold low for the day. However, St. Cloud has had only 2 days with a high of zero or colder, far fewer than average (4 days) or the past two winters. The coldest low temperature was -16, so the -22 low on January 13 still ranks as the coldest temperature of 2014-2015.

The average meteorological winter temperature was 16.4°F, 1.6°F warmer than average and nearly 11 degrees warmer than last winter. The only odd cold statistic was that February has been the coldest month of the 2014-2015 winter. Only 2003 and 2007 of the past 12 winters had February as the coldest month.

You can see the comparisons with the last two extreme winters below.

February also continued the very dry trend seen all winter after our mid-November storm. Only 4.2 inches fell in February, three inches below average. There were two storms of an inch or more, on the 3rd and the 10th, the first storms to produce at least an inch since November 11. For the winter months of December, January, and February, there were only 9.2 inches of snow, more than 16 inches below the average of 25.5 inches. That ranks as the 6th brownest winter total on record and the lowest Dec-Feb snowfall since 1960-1961.

My favorite snow statistic:

• Snowfall on November 10-11: 13.5 inches (tied for 13th biggest snowstorm in St. Cloud history)
• Snowfall November 12-March 1: 13.3 inches (average 32.7 inches)

And there's the National Weather Service national snow cover map with more snow on the ground in Waterloo, IA, St. Louis, Springfield, MO, Wichita, KS, suburbs of Dallas-Ft. Worth, Amarillo, TX and last week, Nashville, Little Rock, and Shreveport than there is in the Minnesota River Valley, much of central Minnesota, and parts of the eastern Dakotas.

The net effect of the lack of snow looks bad on the US Drought Monitor from the National Drought Mitigation Center. There's a large area rated as being abnormally dry with parts of the Red River Valley, and some areas between Bemidji and Grand Rapids and parts of the Upper Red River Valley to Lake Traverse rated in moderate drought. However, the moisture from the snowpack only affects water supplies in the large lakes since the bulk of the snow melts before the ground thaws in the spring. Before the ground froze, central and eastern Minnesota were coming off a very wet growing season (St. Cloud's 4th wettest year on record, for example). So, once the ground thaws, there should be a good supply of ground water.

The cold and relatively thin snow cover is allowing the frost to penetrate more deeply than average, 4 feet deep in Otsego and Starbuck. This could slow the start of the growing season once it warms up. Also, if we are slow to remove the frost, any warm and windy day after the snow melts could produce some grass fire problems in the dried out surface vegetation. But for now, it looks like there will be ample moisture.

February 2015 Statistics

Winter (Dec 1-Feb 28) 2014-2015 Statistics