It’s not just you, 2019 has been cold

    Sometimes from year to year, it can be hard to tell if a winter is actually especially long and cold or if it’s just a normal winter that’s testing your patience. Well the numbers are in, and there’s a reason the last couple of months have felt so frigid.
    Looking at January from 2018 and 2019, there was a lot of overlap. Daily highs and lows recorded in Holyoke were rather similar across both years. For the area, the historical average low in January is 13 F and the high is 41 F. In both 2018 and 2019, there were slightly more days with temperatures above those averages than below.
    The differences between the two years began to stand out more in February and have continued on into March. Holyoke’s average low and high in February are 16 F and 45 F. This year, all but three days in February had lows at or below the average. In 2018, it was all but five days. This February, just six days had high temperatures above the average. February 2018 had 11.
    Using data through March 19, the last day of winter, 2019 had four days with lows above the average 23 F and just one day with a high temperature above the average 53 F. By comparison, 2018 had seven and 10 days of above-average low and high in that same time period.
    Another way to look at this year’s weather is this:
    — January 2019 averaged a low of 14 F and a high of 45 F.
    —February 2019 averaged a low of 5 F and a high of 31 F.
    — March 2019 averaged a low of 15 F and a high of 40 F.
    January’s average was actually slightly higher than the historic average, but February and March were noticably lower.
    The lowest temperature recorded in Holyoke so far in 2019 was -18 F on Feb. 7. At that temperature, frostbite can happen to exposed skin in about 20 minutes. Sixteen days have reached subzero temperatures so far this year, and 30 days never made it above freezing. During the same time period in 2018, there were just eight subzero days and 14 that didn’t get above freezing.