Winter 2017-18 Review

When we look back at the winter of 2017-'18 in northern Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania, two things will stand out: the record amount of snow near Erie, PA and that winter hung on to the bitter end through April.

We consider meteorological winter to be December through February. Temperatures were cold (well below normal) for a relatively short part of the winter, from Christmas day through mid-January. During this time, readings dropped below zero in many areas. February turned warm. Remember the 70 degree day on February 20th? Overall, temperatures for the winter were a tad above normal. Of course it got cold again in March and stayed cold through April. This would be meteorological spring (March-May). The March-April stretch will go down as one of the coldest ever.

Snow was light to moderate much of the winter. Aside from a few lake effect events (and one really big lake effect snow), there were no large snow storms. A couple of systems brushed the counties south of the Turnpike with 4-6 inch storms, mainly from Akron to Canton and Youngstown. The duration of the snowy weather (into April) ended up bringing seasonal snow to near normal levels with above normal amounts from Akron to Youngstown and in the snowbelt. Of course, the granddaddy snow storm occurred at Erie, PA. Starting on Christmas day, it snowed for about 60 hours and it added up to about 50 inches. Remarkable!

A State Climate Extremes Committee (SCEC) convened to validate the record snowfall totals. Here is a link to the press release for the event: www.weather.gov/cle/news_ErieSnowfall_Records_Report and here is the link to the event webpage: www.weather.gov/cle/event_20171225-20171227_Erie_Snow

This is a map of snowfall totals across northern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania for the 2017-2018 winter season.

Summary of Snowfall at Climate Sites ***Preliminary until Certified by NCEI***
2017-2018	Oct 17	Nov 17	Dec 17	Jan 18	Feb 18	Mar 18	Apr 18	May 18	Total 2017-18
Toledo	0	T	13.9	6.6	10.3	1.9	1.6	0	34.3
Mansfield	0	0.1	13	8.8	8.1	11.1	5.2	0	46.3
Cleveland	0	0.8	17.2	12	7.1	12.7	3.3	0	53.1
Akron-Canton	0	0.1	14.0	12.2	11.9	8.9	6.2	0	53.3
Youngstown	T	1.0	19.0	23.1	15.0	15.6	7.6	0	81.3
Erie PA	0	0.5	93.8	22.4	12.7	30.9	6.0	0	166.3