Q1 '15 Weather Summary for NW Chester County PA

[ChescoWx]

Below is my quarterly article for the Township newsletter here in East Nantmeal Township in Chester County PA

 

Hello again from Paul at The NW Chester County Weather Station (www.chescowx.com) here in beautiful East Nantmeal Township.

Happy Spring to everyone here in the Township! I am pretty confident that everyone in the Township is mighty happy to see spring has sprung!

So how cold was the 1^st Quarter of 2015? When it comes to cold it ended up being the 2^nd coldest start to the year in the entire 122 year recorded history in Chester County. The average temperature was 27.4 degrees. February was especially cold with an average temperature of just 20.9 – this was the 3^rd coldest February since records began in 1894. February also featured 3 mornings with below zero readings with -2.8 (16^th); -3.1(20^th) and -0.3(24^th). That -3.1 temperature was the coldest recorded in the county since February 1996. Snow wise each month of the winter season had increasing snow amounts with 11.2” in January; 14.4” in February and 19.3” in March. The biggest snowfall of the season also occurred in March with the 11.3” that fell on March 5^th. Overall for the winter of 2014/15 the Township recorded 55.3” of snow. This combined with the 80.0” that fell last season – made this the snowiest consecutive years ever recorded in the county with 135.3” – the previous greatest back to back seasons were way back in 1898/99 and 1899/1900. Over the last 12 years here in East Nantmeal Township we have averaged 41.2” per winter season.

 If it felt like snow was on the ground for much of the winter….it was - with at least one inch recorded on the ground for 48 consecutive days from January 23 through March 11^th. That is the 3^rd greatest stretch of continuous snow cover behind only 1995/96 (63 days) and last year (50 days).

Through the first quarter the township was running 1.34” above normal in precipitation…however as I write this on April 18^th while the Month of April has averaged a couple of degrees warmer than normal – it has unfortunately been very dry with just 0.47” of rain so far. This deficit has put us at 2.08” below normal for 2015 to date. It appears some significant rain may fall on the 20^th that could get us back closer to normal. No doubt the many farmers in our Township would like to see a somewhat wetter pattern over the next several months.

Average high temperatures rebound quickly over the next couple months with the average high temperature starting at just 56 on April 1^st but reaching near 80 by June 1^st.

Until next time –All the best!

“Some are weather-wise, some are otherwise” Ben Franklin

Paul Callahan