Now that meteorological winter is over, the National Weather Service in Paducah is reporting it was one of the warmest on record in the region.
Forecasters say temperatures were well above normal by 3 to 5 degrees. Cape Girardeau finished as their 3rd warmest winter, while Paducah and Carbondale observed their 4th warmest, and Evansville 6th warmest.
December and February finished much warmer than normal, especially February which ranked amongst the warmest on record. January actually finished below normal by around 1 to 3 degrees, largely due to an arctic blast that impacted the area between January 13th and 21st.
The Paducah office reports the region basically had just those nine days of winter while the rest of the season was quite mild with only a few other brief cold shots.
Snowfall was well below normal, with most areas only receiving amounts of 0.5” to 3”. The exception was a corridor of southern Illinois from Pinckneyville to Mount Vernon to Fairfield and Mount Carmel which picked up 4 to 7” thanks to thundersnow on February 16th.
