Was This the Warmest Winter Ever?

With all the 50 degree days we've had lately, one can't help but wonder if this winter has been as unusually mild as it feels. So we got to the bottom of things.

ABC6 Chief Meteorologist Jeff Desnoyers has consulted the data and although things have been very mild, it has not actually been the warmest winter ever.

It hasn't even been the warmest winter of the last 30 years.

Desnoyers broke down the winter data and exactly how warm and cold it got. And our very cold December, full of pre-Christmas snow, has kept the season average not as high as these last few weeks made it feel.

In December, the daily temperatures were just about average. Typically we are at about 42.6 degrees; this winter was 43.7 degrees.

January, however, was the month where things were most off the average. Usually, the SouthCoast sees temperatures much colder than December, an average of 37.5 degrees. This January stayed pretty much the same with temps averaging 43.6 degrees.

And February, though it ended with extremely abnormal highs, averaged around 44 degrees for the month as a whole. That's just a few degrees higher than the typical average of 40.2 degrees.

All in all, this makes the winter of 2019-2020 the sixth warmest winter on the SouthCoast since temperature averages starting being recorded in 1996. That means in the last 24 years, there were five warmer winters.

Funny how I can't remember which ones they were, though I remember getting random 70-degree February days the last couple of winters.

I do hope this isn't the start of warmer and warmer winters, however. I still enjoy a good snow day here and there.