Here's what to expect these remaining weeks of winter, according to Dave Epstein

Here's what to expect these remaining weeks of winter, according to Dave Epstein

Briefly

"If you take a look at the three coldest months of the year, December through February, we are in the final stretch of that particular measure of the season, known as meteorological winter. Of course, March can be cold and stormy, and even April can be less favorable for outdoor activities. But for the sake of our collective mood about winter, let's look ahead to what we might expect in the coming weeks and into March."

"Temperatures were significantly below normal in December as well as in January. Yet what's interesting is that if this New England winter had occurred at the turn of the 20th century, it would have just been a typical cold, first two-thirds of winter. The reason why it seems so cold to all of us this year is that our winters have warmed dramatically over the past 100 years, and now a winter that would have been fairly ho-hum becomes "bitter cold.""

"The European forecast model gives us something meteorologists call the "weeklies," a look-ahead at the big-picture variables, like temperature and precipitation. The caveat here is that this is a longer long-range forecast. What the weeklies show is a backing off of the cold for that third week of February. You may even have a bit of spring fever after this upcoming weekend. However mild it gets, it's likely to return to a colder-than-average pattern at least into the beginning of March."