Brrr! February Brought Record Cold, Snow to NYC

Sunday, March 1, 2015 8:22 pm | < 1 Minute Read

A team of snow plows on Thursday in North Cape May, N.J. (AP Photo/The Press of Atlantic City, Dale Gerhard)

Hardy souls who shivered and shoveled their way through February in New York City now have evidence of just how brutal the weather was, with record cold in at least eight cities.

“We’re the standout globally,” said Art DeGaetano, director of the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. “It’s colder in Siberia, but we’re the farthest below normal.”

The climate center shows the New York cities of Buffalo, Syracuse, Binghamton and Ithaca had their coldest months ever. The average temperature was 10.9 degrees in Buffalo, beating the 1934 record of 11.4. The normal average temperature for February in Buffalo is 26.3.

The monthly average was 9.0 in Syracuse, 12.2 in Binghamton and 10.2 in Ithaca. Syracuse and Ithaca each had 14 days of zero or below temperatures, a February record. The National Weather Service said Rochester also had a record-cold February with an average temperature of 12.2 degrees.

So what do we have to thank, or blame, for this frigid February?

“We can’t point to anything specific,” DeGaetano said. “It’s just the way the jet stream bulged and set up.

This article appeared in print on page 1 of the March 2nd, 2015 edition of Hamodia.