Winter may be winding down, but don't tell that to the folks in central Ohio this afternoon. Many of them, in places such as Cincinnati and Columbus, are digging out from over 20 inches of snowfall yesterday. They were, unfortunately, on the cold side of this latest winter storm system that is now moving into the Gulf of Maine. With northerly winds and temperatures below freezing, the moisture that fell on the western side of the low pressure center was all in the form of snow.
Here in Connecticut and along the eastern seaboard, we were on the milder, eastern side of the storm, with southerly winds bringing mild air up from the south. As a result, all the precipitation that fell here yesterday was in the form of rain, and we had plenty of it. Bradley Airport officially checked in with 1.68 inches of rain, but some locations in the state received up to three inches of rainfall. On top of rain we had earlier in the week, and the fact that much of the ground in Connecticut is still frozen, most of that water has drained into rivers and streams, which are now going over their banks. Flood warnings are in effect for many central and northern Connecticut towns through Monday.
And just to make the skiers feel even worse, if this storm had been all snow instead of all rain, we would be digging out from 15-20 inches of the white stuff. I've had lots of people tell me that this has been a relatively snow-free winter in Connecticut. While that may be the feeling among many, that actually hasn't been the case. As of today, Bradley International Airport has had 47. 5 inches of snow so far this season. That's 8.2 inches more than normal for the winter thus far, and is almost four times as much snow as we had at this time a year ago. It may not be over yet. We've had a number of significant snowstorms in early April in years past, so I wouldn't put the snow shovels away just yet.
