Friday's temperatures reached 51 degrees. Since winter began Dec. 22, the average temperature of 21.3 degrees is more than 5 degrees above normal.
It's hard to remember that winter just got underway when taking in this view of the Spring Pond Fisheries which is located along Highbridge Street in the town of Manlius. Syracuse, NY -- If you find yourself standing next to someone about 5-foot 4-inches tall today, you’ll have a pretty good idea of the difference between this year and last year when it comes to snow.
So far this season, Central New York has received just under 13 inches of snow. By this time last year, 77.1 inches had been measured at Syracuse Hancock International Airport. In a normal season, some 47.7 inches of snow would have fallen by now, according to National Weather Service data.
As anyone standing outside Friday — temperatures soared to 51 degrees, 19.3 degrees above the normal high temperature for the date — could have told you, this has been a warm winter. Since the season began Dec. 22, the average temperature has been 31.3 degrees, more than 5 degrees above the normal average.
Winter’s warm start comes after a fall that was the second-warmest on record, according to climatologist Jessica Rennells at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell.
Rennells noted that fall 2011 was tied for the warmest ever right up until the last day when a high of 54 and low of 32 dropped the seasonal average to 48.4 degrees, two-tenths of a degree below 2001, the warmest autumn on record.
Other parts of the country have had warm weather as well. A burst of warm air crossed the plains Thursday. The normally frigid Philip, S.D., saw its temperature reach 74 degrees, according to Accuweather. That’s 40 above the normal high and 28 degrees above the previous record high for the date.
The warm temperatures and sparse snow haven’t set records in Central New York: Back in 1933, when Herbert Hoover was still in the White House (Franklin Roosevelt wouldn’t take office until March 1933), Central New York hadn’t received 5 inches of snow by this point in the season. In fact, snowfall didn’t pass the 6-inch mark until the last day of January that year.
Even more recent winters have seen less snow than now: A decade ago, only 10.3 inches of snow had fallen by Jan. 5 and in 2007, only 12.3 inches of snow had fallen by this date.
Of course, records for lack of snow in early January don’t guarantee anything. The record for the least amount of snow on Jan. 10 could be broken if it doesn’t snow at least 1.4 inches by Tuesday.
Otherwise, the record will remain at the 14.3 inches mark set in 1966 — three weeks before the Blizzard of ’66 set records of a different kind.
Contact Charles McChesney at cmcchesney@syracuse.com .