Almost an 'ice age winter' elsewhere in the northern hemisphere

East of the Rockies, especially east of the Mississippi River, February of 2015 will go into the record books as the COLD-EST, and in many cases, SNOW-IEST February ever.

The first 10 days or so of March likewise look cold and snowy east of the Rockies with some of the white stuff likely as well in our part of the country in the Inland Northwest. I'm still leaving my snow tires on until at least mid March, maybe later. Remember the warm EL NINO is dead!

For the second consecutive winter season, the Great Lakes have pretty much frozen over. Even Lake Ontario is approximately 80 percent frozen over. The record of 86 percent was set in 1979. We should set a new ice record on Lake Ontario by sometime this next week. The normal winter ice cover on the most eastern of the Great Lakes is just 11 percent since the late 1800s.

As of the middle of this past week, Lake Erie, known for producing those extremely heavy 'lake-effect snowfalls' like what we saw last November in my hometown of Hamburg, N.Y., is virtually totally frozen over! Lake Huron was close behind at 95 percent frozen over. Niagara Falls has almost completely stopped flowing and appears like some "huge frozen fountain" from the American side of the Falls.

As we said a couple of weeks ago, Boston is likely to break its all-time seasonal snowfall record of 107.6 inches set back in 1995-96 by sometime between now and mid March.

And, as Randy Mann pointed out, it's not just the U.S. that's seeing record cold and snow this harsh winter overall of 2014-15, except along the West Coast of North America, including North Idaho, where we've been mild with rains instead of snows.

Rare heavy snows were observed this past week in parts of Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The 10 inches of heavy, wet snow in Jerusalem caused major traffic problems. Roads in and out of the 'Holy City' were closed for nearly 12 hours. The golden 'Dome of the Rock' mosque was turned white by the snowfall, quite an unusual sight indeed.

Near-record early February snows temporarily crippled Tokyo, Japan, in early February. Some of the northern suburbs of the city reported upwards of two feet of the white stuff falling in less than 24 hours. Traffic was "a nightmare."

Probably even more amazing was the fact that some areas near Cairo, Egypt, saw their first measurable snowfalls this past week in more than 200 years.

Where's that DUMB GLOBAL WARMING when you need it? Even Las Vegas and some Phoenix suburbs had snow last week!

NORTH IDAHO WEATHER REVIEW AND LONG-RANGE OUTLOOKS

As of this Friday morning, Feb. 27, we hadn't had any measurable snow in Coeur d'Alene since the two inches which fell on Sunday, Feb. 1.

Only February of 1961, with just a 'trace' of snowfall in town the entire month, had less of the white stuff since local record-keeping began 120 years ago in 1895.

It's been cold enough lately for snow, especially during the overnight hours, but we've been bone-dry without any significant moisture in the region since Feb. 10.

The extremely dry weather during the past few weeks is undoubtedly what led to the unusual 'slash pile' two-acre blaze on Sunday, Feb. 22 in Hayden.

Overall, thanks to some 'Pineapple Connection' moderate rains in the area in the first 10 days of the month, February of 2015 will go into the record books as 'near normal' as far as precipitation is concerned. As of Friday at 10 a.m., we had gauged 2.07 inches of moisture at my station on Player Drive. The 120-year normal for Coeur d'Alene since 1895 has been 2.17 inches in February. Last year, in 2014, we had nearly 'double' our normal precipitation at a healthy 4.02 inches. By extreme contrast with this year's nearly snowless February, last year we saw the 4th snowiest February on record in town with a whopping 30.3 inches.

There's still the probability that we will see some light snows during early March in our part of the country. I'm still planning on removing my snow tires by mid to late March.

Our spring of 2015 should turn wetter by early to mid April. Temperatures should be close to normal overall. As mentioned previously, the 'El Nino' event in the waters of the east-central Pacific Ocean, has died. We now have an in-between 'La Nada' sea-surface temperature cycle, very difficult for predicting long-range weather patterns.

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. Email sfharris@roadrunner.com