February weather records broken in N.Y.C., elsewhere
New York City has recorded its coldest February in 81 years, and the third-coldest in the city's history
By Doug G. Ware | Feb. 28, 2015 at 1:16 AM
http://cdnph.upi.com/sv/em/i/UPI-5521425098804/2015/1/14251031031752/February-weather-records-broken-in-NYC-elsewhere.jpg In 2015 New York City recorded its coldest February in 81 years, with an average temperature of 24 degrees, which ranks as the third-coldest in history. Photo: NY Times/YouTube
NEW YORK, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Nearly 20 million people in the nation's most populated city have endured this month some of the coldest weather in the area's history, the New York Times reported Friday.
As the month enters its final day, it will go into the record book as the coldest February New York City has seen since 1934 -- 81 years ago -- and the third-coldest of all-time. The month's average temperature was about 24 degrees -- 11 shy, the National Weather Service (NWS) shows, of the February normal.
In 1934, the city's average temperature for February was 19.9 degrees. It was during that frigid month that New York City recorded its lowest ever temperature: 15 degrees below zero.
Before that, you have to go all the way back to 1885 -- another four decades -- to find another New York February as cold (22.7 degrees) as this month has been, NWS meteorologist Jay Engle told the Times. But that's it.
"It has been so cold people feel as if they are under house arrest on their days off," wrote New York Time columnist N.R. Kleinfield. "It is warmer in a meat locker."
The Times report also noted that the cold weather has coincided with more visits to emergency rooms. The chief of emergency medicine at a Brooklyn hospital said his facility is averaging 20 more patients this winter than it did the last. Last month, he said, 30 patients arrived within a single hour for treatment after they slipped and fell on ice.
Forecasters expect New York City to see temperatures in the 40s on Monday, the second day of March.
"March, often a roller-coaster month, is not always charitable with its weather either. But it represents a dash of hope," Kleinfield wrote. "It has to get warmer someday."
New York surely isn't the only major American city dealing with arctic chill. Washington, D.C., has also hovered around record lows this winter.
"Since February 10, we've only managed two days with average- to above-average temperatures," Jason Samenow, a weather writer for the Washington Post, wrote Friday.
Samenow noted that forecast models indicate that the nation's capital will warm up to sustained 50-degree temperatures beginning the second week of March.
Meanwhile in the Atlantic Northeast, Boston is expected to receive possibly four inches of new snow over the weekend -- and then two further snowstorms next week.
Boston has received 102 inches of snow so far this winter -- including more than 30 inches in a two-day period last month -- which is less than 6 inches shy of the all-time record, the Boston Globe reported. That mark, 107 inches, was set during the relentlessly snowy winter of 1995-96.
Further west, it doesn't necessarily get any warmer. Central Illinois and Oklahoma City each recorded their coldest Feb. 27 on record, and Pittsburgh has averaged 18.9 degrees this month, making it the area's second-coldest February on record. And that average may dip further, as the mercury is expected to drop to 6 below zero in the Steel City on Saturday.
Further west, Denver surpassed the city's snowfall record for February -- 22.1 inches -- a 103-year-old mark. Meanwhile, just over the Rockies, Salt Lake City is finally beginning to experience normal winter cold -- after enjoying one of its warmest February months in recent memory.
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