Despite the additional inches of recent storms, we may never reach the average expected levels of snowfall this season due to warm temperatures early in the season.
"We were breaking record after record," meteorologist Chris Ewing of WMUR-TV in Manchester said of this year's abnormally warm early winter months. In some areas of New Hampshire, December temperatures rose to 50 or 60 degrees, which were, according to Ewing, "unheard of for that time of year."
He attributed our slow start to the peculiar positioning of the jet stream in Canada.
"We were in pattern the first six weeks or so which featured very little cold air in the Northeast," Ewing said. "High temperatures were caused by the fact that the jet stream stayed well to the north."
In spite of these record highs, however, Ewing expects winter snowfall and temperatures to drift back into a normal range for the rest of the winter.
"Since then we have been making up for the deficit in snow," he said. "We will be under the gun for new snow storms in the next few weeks."
Indeed, Ewing said the rest of the winter will be characterized by variable temperatures.
"We are now in a fairly active weather pattern," he explained. "March is typically a transition month with periods of cold weather and periods of warm weather."
He did, however, say that warmer temperatures should be expected in the coming weeks as winter comes to a close.
"Obviously, as we get closer to spring it is typically harder to get arctic air down here," Ewing said. "The sun is higher in the sky and the daylight is longer each day."
The recent warm weather in New Hampshire contradicts predictions regarding the La Nia phenomenon, which is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific and predicted unusually low temperatures for northern winters this year.
Ewing explained the discrepancy by saying that this weather model does not affect New England as much as it does other regions.
"We have been in a La Nia pattern and in some parts of the country it's easy to draw a direct correlation," he said, referring to the weather patterns of some southern and western states.
Ewing told The Dartmouth that studies have shown that predictions made according to this phenomenon are accurate only one third of the time in most northeastern states.
Ewing also said global warming was not the cause of the recent warm weather.
"One episode of warm weather is unlikely to show a direct correlation," he said of the conjectured trend.
And what about the most famous weather forecaster of all --
Punxsutawney Phil?
"That's just an old myth," he said.
But despite his skepticism, this particular superstition may have exhibited fortuitous predictive merit this year.
"From the middle of February we are probably going to have at least six more weeks of winter," he admitted.
