It was a cold meteorological winter for the U.S.

We’re at the end of March and 2019 has already seen its share of weather extremes across the country and the rest of the world. Here in North Idaho, we had the snowiest February in recorded history at Cliff’s station in Coeur d’Alene. The final total was 56.0 inches of snow last month, which broke the previous record of 39.5 inches back in 1955.

As we exited the snowy and cold six-week cycle that began in early February, temperatures finally warmed, and conditions have turned drier here in North Idaho. Highs climbed into the low- to mid-60s in many areas last week, helping to melt a lot of the snow.

Fortunately, we haven’t seen any major flooding as overnight lows have been at or below freezing. We also didn’t receive any heavy rainfall along with gusty southwesterly winds that will often lead to high waters at this time of year.

Our current seasonal snowfall total stands at 96.4 inches. It’s possible that we could end up over 100 inches for the season for the fifth time in 11 years. There are a few storm systems that still have the potential for giving us some additional snowfall late this month and into early April.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, our “meteorological” winter that includes December, January and February, the lower 48 states had the wettest winter in history. The contiguous U.S. received an average of 9.01 inches of rain and melted snow. That is 2.22 inches more than the normal for the 20th century. It beat the old record of 8.99 inches which occurred in 1997-98.

February of 2019 was also a very cold month across the U.S. as it averaged 1.8 degrees below normal. However, for the meteorological winter of December, January and February, temperatures across the U.S. were 1.2 degrees warmer than the 20th century average.

While we are observing the spring season, the “meteorological winter” season ended on Feb. 28. March 20 was the beginning of the astronomical spring, or the vernal equinox, which is based on the position of the Earth relative to the sun. Our “astronomical” summer season begins on June 21 at 8:54 a.m., when the sun rays are directly over the Tropic of Cancer at 23.5 degrees North, but the meteorological summer begins on June 1.

Although we base our seasons on the calendar, most meteorologists and climatologists break down the seasons into groups of three months. For example, the meteorological summer includes June, July and August. The meteorological fall begins on Sept. 1 and ends Nov. 30. The meteorological winter is from December through February and the spring includes March, April and May.

This system of meteorological seasons makes it easier for scientists and forecasters to calculate monthly and seasonal statistics. They were created for observing and forecasting weather patterns, which has proven useful for agriculture, commerce and other purposes.

Perhaps a big reason why we’ve had so much snow in February rather than in December and January was the warming and cooling of sea-surface temperatures in the south-central Pacific Ocean. During our early winter season, ocean waters were warmer, but cooled a bit in early 2019 which likely helped with the recent cold and snowy outbreaks.

Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stated that a new El Nino had formed in the waters of the south-central Pacific Ocean. This warmer-than-normal sea-surface temperature pattern is expected to be weak through at least the spring season.

However, there are pockets of cooler-than-normal sea-surface temperatures that are developing, and even intensifying, near the west coast of South America. This may also be in an indication that El Nino will not last for very long. It’s not very common, but readings in an isolated area near the South American coastline are about 3-4 degrees below normal. A short distance to the south, ocean waters are about 2 degrees higher than average.

NOAA still says there is a very good chance that this new warm water phenomenon will last through the spring of 2019. Then, it’s quite likely that we’ll go back into a La Nada, the in-between warmer El Nino and the cooler La Nada sea-surface temperature event.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the government organization that carefully watches sea-surface temperatures, say that we’re currently in a La Nada pattern. Their computer models suggest that warming of the Equatorial region is likely and a weak El Nino is likely to be declared. Some climate scientists are concerned if a large El Nino event during the second half of this year as heat is building up below the ocean surface along the Equatorial regions.

By contrast, during this cycle of wide weather “extremes,” it’s quite possible that we could be talking about the formation of a new La Nina, rather than an expanding El Nino, toward the end of this year or early 2020. This new pattern of isolated ocean water cooling near the South American coast may be an early indication of that event. We also seem to be in a pattern of rapid warming and cooling of sea-surface temperatures in a short period of time.

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Contact Randy Mann at randy@longrangeweather.com