February seemed full of snow and very cold but was in fact just about average by the end of the month. Some very cold days and the biggest snowstorm in some years certainly made for wintery conditions, and the snowbanks that drifted into the roads made travel challenging.
The average temperature for the month was -8.6 degrees Celsius, which is pretty close to the normal for February of -8.0 C. There were eight nights in February when the nighttime low dipped below -20 C, but there were also six days when the daytime high reached above zero degrees.
The total snow accumulation for the month was 76 centimetres, which melted down to 80 millimetres of moisture, so relatively wet and heavy snow. Combined with the 13 mm of rain, total precipitation for the month was 93 mm, which is slightly above average. Last year there was only 19 cm of snow and 22 mm of precipitation, so quite a difference.
There was some form of precipitation on 14 days of the month, and there was snow cover on the ground the entire month so that limited the depth of the frost below the surface.
The depth of the snow cover was over 50 cm after the big storm mid-month but has since reduced to around 30 cm with the wind and warmer weather by the end of the month.
March is looking to be warmer than normal, particularly the second half of the month when both daytime and nighttime temperatures are forecast to be above average. Thoughts of maple syrup abound!