A 'Top 10' Year For Boston Weather

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It's a time for looking back, archiving some memories into your brain, and preparing to start a new chapter. Every year of New England weather brings its own flavor, and rarely do they go quietly. That's the beauty and the beast of living in this part of the country. 2015 didn't feature big tornadoes, major flooding, or tropical trouble. But even without some of those major headlines, each month was memorable (and many record breaking) in their own way. So without further ado, let's dig in to some 2015 weather weirdness!

January - The Blitz Begins

There's no reason to skip past the first few pages of the calendar - we had some issues right off the bat. An uneventful start to winter took a dramatic turn on January 26th, 2015. We put together this delightful snowfall accumulation map, which I'm afraid to say verified nicely. This storm ended up being the 6th largest in Boston's recorded history, but the ALL-TIME largest snowstorm of record in Worcester. 34.5" of snow stacked up in the city. We called it the Blizzard of 2015, because typically there's only one or two. Well...you know what happened next.

February - All-Time Cold And Snow

Hey neighbor, mind if I borrow the bucket loader? Once the dendrites were released, there was no stopping them. The stretch between January 24th and February 22nd brought a mind-boggling 94.4" of snow to Boston, burying cars for weeks on end and turning sidewalks into tunnels. That four-week streak alone would have been good enough for the 3rd snowiest winter season. A record snow depth of 37" was recorded in Boston (Winthrop, to be exact) and we set new marks for just about every single snow record that exists. Sixteen days of the month had measurable snow. And we added ANOTHER Top 10 all-time snowstorm February 7th-9th. To top off the snowiest month on record, an explosive storm just after Valentine's Day brought widespread thundersnow and this moment of zen for the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore in Plymouth.

It wasn't just the snow, but the fact that it just sat there and stared at us. February ended up being the coldest month ever recorded in many New England towns (the coldest in Boston since records moved to Logan in 1936, but 2nd all-time if you count 1934 when records were kept inside the city). We went from January 20th through March 3rd without even hitting 40 degrees, an amazing (record setting) 43 days. The snow and ice didn't melt a bit, wreaking havoc on homes and snow removal budgets. It's tough to overstate how cold February was. Nantucket's 'slush waves' went viral, even making it to the cover of the New York Times. It's also how we achieved such huge snow totals - extremely high snow ratios made for storms that didn't require a lot of moisture to produce huge totals.

March - Ice Bergs, Anyone?

Not exactly ice bergs, but giant chunks of sea ice rolling into Wellfleet Harbor were a national sensation in March. It was the home stretch of a generational-level cold snap, and ice was filling parts of Mass Bay and Nantucket Sound. It's not often that the Outer Cape becomes a tourist hot-spot in winter, but cars were pulling in like it was the Field of Dreams to snap a photo of something that may not be seen again for decades. March didn't do much to warm us up and melt away the winter white. It was the 6th coldest on record since 1936 (when record keeping moved to Logan Airport). It capped off a run that no one in much of the area had endured before.

April - Boston Marathon Soaker

No big records in April, but as one of the runners in the 2015 Boston Marathon I can tell you that it was about as miserable of a training season as you could possibly cook up. In the beginning, all of the cold and snow. But in April? Just a slap in the face. It snowed on a couple of April runs, and could Mother Nature throw us a bone for race day? Of course not. It poured. And was windy. And temps fell into the lower 40s during the afternoon. Thank goodness for beer.

May - Straight To Summer!

And the, the clouds parted. And it was good. Scary good. May was about as warm, sunny, and quiet of a month as New England ever gets. It only rained 4 days of the entire month, and temperatures soared. May wound up as the 10th warmest on record in Boston, but the warmest all-time in Hartford, CT and 3rd warmest in Worcester. It was also the driest May ever recorded in Worcester with only a paltry 0.60" falling. So far as I can tell, no one complained. The thaw was well-deserved.

Meteorological Summer - Sun Drenched & Dry As A Bone

In the world of weather, 'summer' is June/July/August. And though we got off to a rocky start with a pair of days in the 40s to kick it off, our fortunes changed dramatically after that. We finally hit 90F in late-July, the 5th longest wait for that level of heat on record. That also helped us to finally wave goodbye to our beloved snow farm in Southie on July 14th.

August really turned up the heat, becoming our 5th warmest on record after a long hot and humid stretch. What really stuck out to me over the course of the summer was the lack of any active weather. We had a few stormy days here and there, a couple that included tornado warnings. But no widespread damage, no tropical action, barely even any clouds. It may have been the sunniest summer I can remember having in these parts, and the only down-side was that we started to head into drought. Precipitation ran well below average July-August and most of September.

Meteorological Fall - Warm Times Continue

We ended up with an extension of summer as everyone went back to work and school. In fact it went on for so long that many started to complain that they couldn't go out to pick apples or enjoy a hay ride because it was just too hot outside. It took two weeks to even get a day to stay in the 60s, and our hottest day of the entire year fell on September 8th with a high of 96F! It was part of a 3-day heat wave that baked the region. Even more than the warm days, it was the stunningly mild nights. Barely any fresh & crisp air to breath in - the coldest night in Boston all month was a balmy 48 degrees. At the end, September was the 3rd warmest ever recorded in Boston.

October was finally a 'typical' month for us with nothing much to report except for more dry weather and a close shave with Joaquin, which eventually tracked safely out to sea. But November brought the warmth back to New England. Yes, it was another 'Top 10' month, becoming our 9th warmest on record in Boston. All told, this gave us the 2nd warmest autumn season of record in the state.

December - An Epic Torch To Close Out 2015

And all this brings us to the here and now. While ice and cold have stolen the headlines in the final couple of days, this month has truly been the coup de grace of a wild temperature year. Not only did December become the warmest ever recorded, it made a complete mockery of the entire period of record (back to 1871). We will beat the previous record holder by about 4 degrees. That may not sound like much, but it's a gigantic margin for a monthly averaged temperature. The amazing thing is that our departure from average isn't even the most interesting one in the east. It looks like every single state east of the Mississippi will end up with their warmest on record, many by several degrees. New York City didn't have a single day of below average temperatures all month, and hasn't gone below freezing at all.

What does it all mean in the end? I think this graphic sums it up. From record cold to start, to record warmth to finish, what did we end up with? Average. It all completely evened out to a year that, when viewed in summary, was right in the middle of the pack. And that goes to show you what averages truly are - the middle ground between extremes, which often turn out to be more typical than the 'average' days.