COLUMBIA, S.C. — Outside of Christmas week, most of the Eastern US has experienced a very warm winter. This coupled with an upper-level pattern that has seen storm systems remain away from the Atlantic coast has resulted in a snow drought along the coastal Atlantic.
In this article, we cover the cities of Columbia, SC, Charlotte, NC, Norfolk, VA, and Washington DC. The common thread between all of these cities; they have seen no measurable snow at all as of January 24th.
This is pretty common in a place like Columbia where we average around 1.3” inches of snow per year. Over the last 30-year climate period, Columbia went through 11 different, at least year-long snow droughts.
Travel just north to Charlotte, North Carolina and they have never gone a winter without recording some snowfall. Normally during a typical season, the Queen City will average right around 3.5 inches of snow.
For a coastal city like Norfolk, Virginia, Tegna Chief Meteorologist Evan Stewart says this lack of snow isn’t much of a concern for them yet.
“Three of our biggest snows have been in February and March, but when it comes to the average of the whole month, January is usually our snowiest month.”
Norfolk has measured at least a trace of snow each winter but, Evan says that their snow history is often skewed by large induvial coastal storms. This means that realistically the city doesn’t typically see that much snow in the winter only amounting to an average of 6.2 inches.
When it comes to this year he says the lack of snow so far has even potentially been a benefit for the coastal city, which has a very large tourist industry.
“If your family is spending a week in Colonial Williamsburg or out at the ocean front you’d want it to be a bit warmer.”
Approaching the nation’s capital, that story begins to change.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing Cory, I have not seen a pattern locked in like this for this length of time since I could remember forecasting.”
DC unlike the previous two cities has always recorded measurable snow each winter. That means at least .01 inches of snow has fallen in the city.
Tegna Chief Meteorologist Topper Shutt says Washington DC along with other cities in the Mid Atlantic are without snow as this unseasonably warm pattern continues.
While New York City is approaching its latest measurable snowfall ever recorded, places like DC still have a way to go before they begin to break records
“Well our latest measurable snowfall is February 23rd so we still have some time, but looking ahead at the pattern here we might have a small chance Wednesday to see some snow before we kick over to rain.”
For snow lovers along the coast, this snow drought looks like it could very likely continue into next month the Climate Prediction Center has continued this warm trend along the coast in their February forecast.
