The Triangle had no measurable snow as winter broke records. How do past ones compare?
The Triangle ended the winter with no measurable snow and a stretch of days that saw temperatures exceed 80 degrees, forecasters said.
But how does that compare to past winter seasons in central North Carolina?
To find out, McClatchy News searched for historic data and asked the National Weather Service’s Raleigh office to share figures from the past meteorological season, which ran Dec. 1 to Feb. 28. The results give insight into the last time the Triangle went without measurable snow and other highlights of the recent record-breaking season.
When’s the last time this happened in the Triangle?
In the 2022-23 winter season, the Raleigh area received only a trace of snow, meaning some fell but the accumulation didn’t reach one-tench of an inch, Meteorologist Jonathan Blaes told McClatchy News in a phone interview.
Those observations came almost two decades after the last time no measurable snow was recorded in the Triangle in winter 2005-06. In fact, the phenomenon only has happened a total of 16 times since records started being kept.
So far, the lone time the region saw no snow at all was in 1889-90, according to figures shared with McClatchy News.
The latest records come from Raleigh-Durham International Airport, and forecasters noted it’s possible other places within the Triangle saw different amounts of snow.
Though the meteorological winter is over, there’s an unlikely chance it will snow in March. But it’s happened in the past, including when the “snowstorm of the century” hit in early March 1980, dumping more than a foot in parts of central North Carolina, according to forecasters and The News & Observer.
How warm did it get?
This winter also was the third warmest ever recorded and saw record-breaking temperatures. For example, the region reached 85 degrees Feb. 23, setting an all-time high for the entire season.
“The previous record was 84 was set on Feb. 26, 1977,” the weather service’s Raleigh office wrote on its website.
“We had a pretty mild winter in the Raleigh area,” Blaes said. “And we had one real notable round of cold weather. You may remember, that was back before the Christmas holiday.”
At about that time, the Triangle experienced a stretch of temperatures below freezing, putting a strain on the electrical grid. Still, forecasters on Twitter said the winter season “will be remembered for (its) record warmth” in Raleigh and surrounding areas.
Overall, the average winter temperature was 48.9 degrees. The winter trends were recorded as the the area’s current 30-year average of snow — which is updated every 10 years — is about 5.5 inches, a total that has been going down since the 1980s.
“That trend of less snow observed and fewer winter storms is something that’s been observed quite a few decades now,” Blaes said, adding that climate change and a natural evolution in weather or climate patterns could be playing a role.
