Happy Groundhog Day!

 

A February day in the nation's capital

January 2025 was a colder and drier than average month in the nation’s capital, despite having above average snowfall. Last month also featured DC’s coldest stretch of weather since 2018 and was DC’s coldest January since 2014. Temperatures remained below freezing on four consecutive days.

February is the third and final month of “meteorological” winter. It’s also D.C.’s snowiest month of the year on average with 5.0”, according to the National Weather Service. Six of D.C.’s 10 largest snow events have occurred in February with the most recent being “Snowmageddon” in February 2010. However, Washington, D.C. hasn’t had a snowier than average February since 2015.

February is also the driest month of the year in Washington, D.C. with a monthly rainfall average of only 2.62”. In fact, February has been drier than average for three consecutive years. That’s not good news for the Mid-Atlantic Region which has seen below average rainfall in eight of the last 12 months. Consequently, moderate to severe drought conditions have developed across the entire DC Metro Area.

Average daily high/low temperatures range from 46°/30° on February 1 to 52°/34° on February 28. Seven of the last eight February’s were warmer than average in the nation’s capital. That includes D.C.’s warmest and third warmest February's in 2017 and 2023. In a rare set of circumstances, February was warmer than March in both 2017 and 2018. D.C.’s coldest February temperature occurred on February 11, 1889 (-15°). By comparison, D.C.’s warmest overall February temperature was 84° (February 25, 1930).

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center expects this February to feature near to slightly above average precipitation with above average temperatures in the nation's capital. That makes sense considering the warmer than average month my colleagues and I on the WUSA9 Weather Team expect during the first week of February. However, the right ingredients need to come together only once to produce a significant winter storm.  Meanwhile, average daily temperatures and the amount of daylight both increase as the month of February wears on.