March 3rd, 2014 will be in the record book for a record low temperature. Clinton area weather observer Jim Blaess says the low this morning was 15 below zero and broke the record for the date that had been a zero reading in 1943. Blaess said that today (Monday) is the coldest temperature in March records that has been recorded. The old record was 14-below on March 5th and 6th in 1960.
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The normal snowfall for this month is 3.3 inches and Blaess says the snow on March 1st was 4.3 inches.
The normal high for March first is 41 and the average low is 24.
February 2014 will be in the record books as the 6th coldest February in records to 1879. Blaess says the overall average temperature was just under 14 degrees which is about 13 degrees below the average of about 27.
He says it is the coldest February since1936 that had an overall average of about 10 degrees.
The highest reading was 50 degrees on February 18th. The coldest was 21 below zero on the 11th , which Blaess said was a record for the date.
There were 12 days with zero or below temperatures in the month and Blaess says the normal is 3 days and it’s the most since 1978 when there were 13 days.
The Clinton area weather observer pointed out a couple of other examples of the cold weather. Blaess noted the average high was just over 23 degrees and that tied for the 2nd coldest average to 1892. The coldest February was 1936 with an average high of just under 20. He also pointed out that the average low was 4-degrees which was the coldest average low since 1936 when the low was under a degree and the it was 4th coldest since 1892.
The meteorological winter is December-January-February and Blaess says there are many other examples of how cold it has been.
The weather observer says that three month period will be the 6th coldest period to 1879. During that period, Blaess says there were 33 days with zero or below temperature and it was the most since the 1977-78 period that had 37. It was also the 12th time with 30 days or more of zero or below temperatures since the 1892-93 winter.
For a comparison, Blaess said this winter that 66 of to 90 days had below normal temperatures while last winter 75 of the 91 days had above normal temperatures.
