What Misery? It's The Least Snowy, Cold Start To Winter, So Far, In More Than A Dozen Northern Cities

Forget Florida, Check Out Balmy Canada

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Winter 2023-24 has been the mildest on record, so far, for more than a dozen U.S. cities, according to an index that tracks both cold and snow.

T​hese record-mild cities are all in the North. According to an index calculated by the Midwest Regional Climate Center, these cities having a record-gentle winter so far stretch from Oregon to central New York.

They include some of the nation's most notoriously cold and snowy places: Fargo, North Dakota; International Falls, Minnesota; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Oswego, New York, among others denoted by the darkest-red dots in the map below.

W​hat is this "winter misery index"? The Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index (AWSSI) developed by scientists several years ago summarizes how severe a winter has been. The index adds up cold temperatures, snowfall and snow depth statistics to give a running count of a winter season. The higher the index, the colder and snowier the winter.

It's also been nicknamed the "winter misery index", for those not fond of cold and snow.

It's been weird in t​he Twin Cities. Minneapolis-St. Paul has managed only 7.3 inches of snowfall all season. That's almost 2 feet behind their average pace through the end of January and their least snowy season-to-date in 65 years, according to NOAA's ACIS database. The most snow Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport had on the ground this season was a measly 2 inches, on Halloween.

I​t's also been their warmest December-January period in 152 years, according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center.

No wonder it's been a record docile winter there, according to the AWSSI metric.

W​inter has been pretty bland for many others. You may have noticed the rash of red dots on the map above. While it hasn't been the stuff of records, that means it's also been a milder-than-usual winter, so far, from the Northeast to the Midwest and much of the West.

Boston, C​hicago, New York and Salt Lake City are among those that have had a shoulder-shrug winter, according to the AWSSI metric.

E​l Niño is a contributor. The strongest El Niño since 2015-16 is leaving its fingerprint on the winter pattern, so far. Domes of high pressure aloft over Canada and the northern U.S. have kept those areas warmer than usual and pushed the storm track to the south. Only an interlude of arctic cold and snow in mid-January broke up this general pattern.

T​here have been more "miserable" exceptions. Not everywhere in the U.S. has winter been mild and warm.

T​hat boosted AWSSI indices to a more harsh-than-usual winter from Texas to the Tennessee Valley.

T​hen there's Alaska. Anchorage leapfrogged over the 100-inch seasonal snowfall hurdle earlier than any other winter on record. Juneau had its snowiest month in 59 years in January, picking up more than 6 feet of snow.

A d​ifferent type of misery. While the AWSSI doesn't take it into account, it's been a prolifically wet winter in the East, from Florida to Maine.

A​ccording to the Southeast Regional Climate Center, December through January was record wet in 10 eastern U.S. cities. Among them were Albany, New York; Baltimore; Greensboro, North Carolina; and Richmond, Virginia.

When it wasn't raining or snowing, it was cloudy for long stretches, including one in late January in the Northeast.

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Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. His lifelong love of meteorology began with a close encounter with a tornado as a child in Wisconsin. He studied physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then completed his Master's degree working with dual-polarization radar and lightning data at Colorado State University. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on X (formerly Twitter), Threads and Facebook.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives.