March has arrived, so it’s a perfect time to look back and summarize February. A few words I would use to summarize February’s weather conditions on the summit are warm, foggy, and windy. Let’s look back at some of the stats for the month.

 

Our average temperature for the month was 8.1°F (-13.3°C), which is 2.2°F above the 1991-2020 30-year climate normal for our station. Our warmest temperature recorded in February was 38°F (3°C), occurring on Feb. 18. Our coldest temperature recorded during the month was -24°F (-31°C) on Feb. 14.

 

In terms of total liquid equivalent precipitation (the liquid collected from rain and by melting the freezing and frozen precipitation types collected after measuring their depth) during February, the summit of Mount Washington received 4.65 inches, which was 0.80 inches below the 30-year normal for our location. The summit received 32.7 inches of snow/sleet, which was 10.6 inches below the 30-year normal.

 

We’ve received several questions recently about how our snowfall has been doing at the summit. For Mount Washington, our snowfall season goes from July 1 to June 30 (all year!), so our season is far from over. Looking at the numbers from July 1, 2021 to Feb. 28, 2022, the summit has received 167.8 inches of snow/sleet, which is 20.5 inches below the 30-year normal for our location.

 

That deficit might seem like a lot, but it can still easily be made back up. Statistically speaking, March is our second “snowiest” month, and we will also typically see snowfall in April, May, and even early June. According to the 30-year normal from March 1 to June 30, we can still receive upwards of 93.5 inches of snowfall. So, yes, we are down but far from out.

 

In terms of winds during February, our average was 45.4 mph, which was 0.8 mph above the 30-year normal for our location. Our highest gust recorded during the month was 125 mph, occurring on Feb. 19. February had 19 days with gusts of 73 mph or greater, and of those days, nine had gusts that were 100 mph or greater.

 

As for our weather during the month, we averaged 36% of the possible sunshine. The summit had one day that was noted as clear or mostly clear, and there were three partly sunny days, with the remaining 24 days being filed under mostly cloudy, cloudy, or obscured (fog). We had 26 days with at least some amount of fog recorded during a 24-hour period. We had four days with rain/freezing rain and 20 days with snow/sleet.

 

If interested in additional weather data, please check out our F-6 page (updated nightly), our Normals, Means, and Extremes page, our Current Conditions page, and our 48-Hour Higher Summits Forecast. If you need data for research purposes, you can submit a request here.