Warmer weather on the way for central PA. Will State College get more snow in February?
With high temperatures well above freezing and no snow in the forecast, you might look around and hardly realize it’s the middle of winter in Centre County.
Freezing rain, snow and frigid temperatures dominated most of January, but things are beginning to become milder for the State College area as we head into February. Could the second month of the year provide any more snow as winter seemingly kicks into high gear?
Here’s what you can expect throughout Centre County and central Pennsylvania as the winter season continues this February.
Has Centre County’s snowfall dried up?
Although plenty of snow fell in central Pennsylvania throughout January, there doesn’t seem to be much winter precipitation in the forecast.
“We’re definitely in a break from winter weather, and it’s going to be lasting for quite a while,” said Bob Larson, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather. “We expect the better part of the first half of February to stay relatively tame — not terribly cold and not snowy.”
Temperatures over the next two weeks are expected to become more mild for the middle of winter in Centre County. Highs north of 40 degrees Fahrenheit and even into the 50s are on deck for State College through the first half of the month, according to AccuWeather’s online forecast. For now, projected high temperatures won’t fall into the 30s until Feb. 15, but low temperatures will remain in the upper 20s or lower 30s.
“Winter isn’t over. This is the first week of February, which is equivalent to, in the summertime analogy, the first week of August. If it was comfortable with low humidity in the first week of August, I don’t think anyone would envision that we wouldn’t get muggy again with all the dog days of summer yet to come,” Larson said. “We don’t expect this to continue for the rest of winter. Starting with the week of Feb. 12, we should get back into a colder weather pattern — a lot close to what’s considered more typical for February, weather-wise.”
The State College area has recorded about 13.5 inches of measurable snowfall since the winter season began, according to the National Weather Service, but most of that came in a roughly two-week period in January. Snow totals so far fall significantly below the 21.7 inches of snow an average year would have produced in the area up until this point.
No winter produced less snow through early February than the 1895-96 season, which saw just 3.7 inches fall in State College, according to NWS archive data. The most snow recorded in the NWS archives up through this point in the year — 81.5 inches — came during the 1995-96 winter season.
“We do believe the second half of February will be a lot different than the first half of February,” Larson said. “It should be colder with respect to seasonal averages and at least some opportunities for snow. I would be surprised if there was not accumulating snow at times in the second half of February, but it’s too far out to pick anything specific out just yet.”
The State College area received roughly 5 inches of snow in early January thanks to a weekend storm. At the time, the storm marked the first time State College had measured at least 1 inch of snow in 346 days.
The now-broken 345-day streak without at least 1 inch of measurable snow was the longest on record for State College, according to the NWS. The previous record of 318 snowless days had occurred twice before — one streak stretching from Feb. 20, 1979, through Jan. 4, 1980, and another between March 16, 2006 and Jan. 28, 2007.
Is El Niño playing a role?
Pennsylvania’s so-far mild winter is likely, at least in part, a product of a notable climate system’s influence on the U.S.
El Niño can significantly affect weather across the country by altering jet streams and climate processes, often making for a warmer, drier winter in the mid-Atlantic with above-normal temperatures for much of the U.S., including Pennsylvania. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center expects the pattern to continue “for the next several seasons,” likely through at least this coming spring.
An El Niño pattern usually brings storms to California and the West Coast before tracking them to the South, and from there turning up the East Coast or marching out to sea. According to Larson, El Niño’s effects can create dry patterns for Pennsylvania.
“As it stands, we’re getting into one of those dry spells right now, but I don’t think it will last,” the AccuWeather meteorologist said. “It’s a little unrealistic to think that for the rest of the winter, all of the storms are going to stay to our south. Some of them are going to start to come up the East Coast again as they did in December and January.”
Though the winter is far from over, Larson says seasons affected by El Niño can be a mixed bag.
“Some are cold, some are mild,” he said. “It depends on what’s going on with the northern branch of the jet stream and how much cold air is able to come down from Canada. Each El Niño differs in that regard — some mild and rainy, some cold and snowy and some dry or a mix of everything.”
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