The statistics are in for Southern New England's "winter". Winter doesn't officially end for another two weeks, but we meteorologists consider "winter" to be the months of December, January, and February. In any event, there are some interesting tidbits of information in this winter's summary. Here are the highlights from the National Weather Service (my comments are in italics)

2008-2009 CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER AVERAGE TEMPERATURE...30.8F
CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER DEPARTURE...-0.3F (December +1.4°, January -4.5°, February +2.0°)
30 YEAR NORMAL 1971-2000 CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER TEMPERATURE...31.1F

2008-2009 CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER PRECIPITATION...12.94"
CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER DEPARTURE...+0.98"
30 YEAR NORMAL 1971-2000 CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER PRECIPITATION...11.96"

2008-2009 CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER SNOWFALL...39.3" (This does not include the recent snowstorm.)
CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER DEPARTURE...+12.9"
30 YEAR NORMAL 1971-2000 CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER SNOWFALL...26.4"

REMARKS... 2008-2009 CLIMATOLOGICAL WINTER SNOWFALL TOTAL 39.3" IS THE HIGHEST SINCE 2004-2005 CLIMATOLOGICAL WHEN 58.5" ACCUMULATED. 72.2" SNOW FELL THAT ENTIRE WINTER SEASON.

DECEMBER 2008 SNOWFALL TOTAL OF 20.6" RANKS AS THIRD SNOWIEST DECEMBER ON RECORD AND SNOWIEST DECEMBER SINCE 1947.

DECEMBER 2008 PRECIPITATION TOTAL OF 7.01" IS THE 9TH WETTEST DECEMBER ON RECORD AND THE WETTEST DECEMBER SINCE 1986.

JANUARY 2009 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE 24.2F IS THE COLDEST JANUARY SINCE JANUARY 2004 WHEN THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS 21.4F. (What a brutal month that was!)

JANUARY 2005 SNOWFALL TOTAL OF 14.9" IS THE SNOWIEST JANUARY SINCE 2005 WHEN 36.7" ACCUMULATED. (We had a blizzard on January 23, 2005 - 23.4")

JANUARY 2009 HIGHEST TEMPERATURE 42 DEGREES ON THE 28TH IS THE COLDEST HIGH FOR ANY JANUARY. IT IS THE COLDEST HIGH FOR ANY MONTH SINCE FEBRUARY 1978 WHEN THE HIGH FOR THE MONTH WAS 38F. (Who would have thought of a stat like that? Oh wait, I brought that to the attention of the NWS.)

FEBRUARY 2009 SNOWFALL TOTAL OF 3.9" IS THE LEAST SNOWIEST FEBRUARY SINCE 2004 WHEN 3.1" ACCUMULATED. We know what happened on March 1,2 - 11.1" of snow!

You can see the report for all the Southern New Engladnd stations here.

-FRED