Cape Cod Gets Her First Snow Of The Year

Well, we get our first accumulating snow of the year. I saw flakes a few times earlier this season, but this is the first snow to stick south/east of Plymouth. I include mainland Bourne and mainland Sandwich in my Cape Cod first snowfall geography, as I consider these regions to be a Latvia sort of buffer zone between Cape Cod and the real world. Snowfall is 35% of the joke in any White Florida references you see aimed at Cape Cod. These pics were taken from Capeside Bourne, where the Trowbridge Tavern is.

My car, cold-chillin'. This snow should change to rain on Cape Cod, and temperatures will actually crack 50 today for most of the area. This is good, because I have 9 hours of Salvation Army bellringing today in Hyannis, and was none-too-pleased with that 27 degree, 35 mph gusts nonsense I stood outside in on Saturday.

In case you're wondering, the first snow of 2015 for Cape Cod was December 29th, and the first snow of 2014 for Cape Cod was November 2nd. For years before that, we'd need the Cape Cod TODAY archives, and that's someone else's problem, player.

First Snow!

Some snow moved into our region from the west last night. I got nada in Bourne, but my friend Jenny D's Bees got these pics for us from Kingston.

Hardly a blizzard, but there is more coming. Mostly flurries, but even flurries are fun at the start of winter.....

... unless there are 40 mph winds, and you're doing this today. I plan to use that firewood, trust me.

First Snow Of The Season

So it begins...

It wasn't much, but it was a start. Cramberry County got her first snow of the year.

We're from a part of Massachusetts that may actually skip December snow sometimes. We could also get anything in a range from Blizzard to Flurries.

This is one of those Al Nino years, so maybe we're not going to have much snow. Or maybe we'll get 10 yards of it, who knows?

Weather science is sorcery, and no one really knows for sure what is going to happen more than 2 or 3 days in advance, if even that. What we can tell you is what HAS happened in the past. That's actually pretty easy since they invented Google.

NOAA keeps those kind of records. For Massachusetts, they have 6 months listed for snowfall: November, December, January, February, March and April. We've had snow in October, and we've had snow in June, but they only keep averages for the months I listed.

No joke on that June snow thing... New England got June snow in 1816 (The Year Without A Summer) and 1842. Vermont got a foot of snow from the 1842 event, which also threw June snowflakes onto Boston.

Boston's measurable snowfall record for lateness is May 10th, 1977. That's the same as Burlington, Vermont. Our average final snowfall falls on March 25th. Burlington, VT and Buffalo, NY have late April as the average last snowfall. Boston has October 10th, 1979 as her earliest snowfall. 1913 holds the Boston record for snowiest October, at .4 inches.

Bourne, MA, very early this AM...

Here are a few average winter snowfall totals (1981-2010 averages, and they do not include the snowalicious winter we went through last January through March), by town:

Chatham, 28.9 inches over 11.7 days of snow... "days of snow" means "days with more than .1 inches of snow)

Edgartown, 23.6 inches over 9.7 days

Hyannis, 15.6 inches over 6.1 days

East Wareham, 43.8 inches over 22.4 days

Hingham, 47.1 inches over 25.0 days

New Bedford, 33.2 inches over 14.7 days

Taunton, 28.0 inches over 10.3 days

Plymouth, 36.2 over 13.1 days
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Let's use Wareham as a base. In November, they get 1 inch of snow on average, in 1.4 days. December kicks 6.9 inches over 2.3 days. January drops 12 inches over 4.6 days. February powders us with 8.7 inches over 3.6 days. March gives 6.1 inches over 2.3 days. April finishes the show with 1.4 inches over .3 days. That's your average Wareham Winter... 36.1 inches over 14.3 days of snowfall.

Those numbers aren't always accurate. We had singular storms which have rivaled that 36.1' figure. That was a bad winter. Those sort of average out the years where we never get a bad storm. After last night's snow, Wareham has about a 7 inch snow deficit when compared to the Average year.

Cape Cod (or at least Cape Cod if you average out the numbers for Chatham and Hyannis) has an average low temperature of 29 degrees in December, 23 in January, 24 in February, 30 in March and 39 in April. They get 25 days over 80 degrees, 20 of which are in July and August. They get 28 days at 20 degrees or below , 20 of which are from January and February.

So, we have the Winter underway, and the worst is yet to come. There is nothing huge in the pipeline. The guy on Accuweather say that our snow should kick in about mid-January.

First Snow Of The Season Tonight?