At a Glance
- Boston had its least snowy start to a season through mid-January.
- Winter Storm Harper finally brought an inch of snow this weekend.
Winter Storm Harper brought Boston its first inch of snow this weekend, ending the city's least snowy start to a winter season on record.
Boston's Logan Airport received 1.6 inches of snow from Harper before a changeover to rain occurred there early Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
Through Jan. 16, Boston's Logan Airport had picked up only 0.2 inches of snow. This was 17 inches less than an average season-to-date, and a whopping 22.7 inches less than its season-to-date snowfall one year ago, according to the National Weather Service.
This made it the least-snowy start to a season through mid-January on record in complete records dating to 1936-37, lower than the 0.8 inches of snow measured through Jan. 16 in the 2006-07 season.
While this was the record least snowy start to the season, the latest Logan Airport has gone before a 1-inch snowfall event in any season was in the 2006-07 season, when it took until Valentine's Day for that to happen.
Logan Airport's location in East Boston across the harbor from downtown makes it prone to rainier conditions, with east to southeasterly winds warmed just enough by the ocean often changing precipitation to rain there even while more inland locations still see snow.
Many suburbs in the Boston metro had already picked up at least a few inches of snow this season through mid-January.
However, significant snowfall season-to-date deficits had also piled up at other locations in southern New England through Jan. 16:
- Worcester, Massachusetts: 9.7 inches of snow so far (16.4 inches below average)
- Providence, Rhode Island: 6.3 inches of snow so far (8.6 inches below average)
- Windsor Locks, Connecticut: 8.3 inches of snow so far (7.4 inches below average)
"Arguably it's been a more notable (snow) drought for the interior areas," said WBZ-TV chief meteorologist Eric Fisher.
Fisher noted Worcester picked up a measly 0.5 inch of snow Dec. 1 through mid-January.
Consider what Logan Airport has managed during the eight named winter storms we've had in 2018-19 so far:
- Avery (mid-November): Only 0.1 inch of snow, despite heavier snow elsewhere in the Northeast
- Bruce (Nov. 23-27): Snow in northern New England; 2.11 inches of rain at Logan
- Carter (late November): Light snow in northern New England; 0.75 inch of rain at Logan
- Diego (early December): Snow remained mainly south of Washington D.C.
- Eboni (around Christmas): Mainly a Plains blizzard; 0.33 inch of rain at Logan
- Fisher (Near Year's): Mainly in the southern Plains and Southwest; 0.79 inch of rain at Logan
- Gia (Jan. 10-13): Cold enough, but snow remained mainly south of New York City
- Harper (Jan. 19-20): 1.6 inches of snow before a changeover to rain
"(If) you look at all the seasons with not just quiet starts, but exceptionally quiet starts...it's a list of major duds," Fisher told weather.com and also covered in a late December blog post.
Of the other top-five-least-snowy seasons-to-date, none of them ended up with at least the average seasonal snow of 43.5 inches:
- 2015-16: 36.1 inches
- 2011-12: 9.3 inches
- 2006-07: 17.1 inches
- 1979-80: 12.5 inches
That doesn't necessarily mean the rest of this season may be uneventful there.
Fisher said this season could end up being an outlier, but in a different way.
"Given the expected pattern over the next six weeks, it could be the first really snowy winter overall with a dramatically quiet first half."
The 2015-16 season had four separate 6-inch-plus snow events from Jan. 23 through April 4.
Just four years ago, Boston was buried by a whopping 110.6 inches of snow, its record-snowiest season.
