You Name That Snow?! See How This Winter Stacks Up.

Have you ever been crossing your fingers for snow? In that case, you’re not alone: It has been a dreary winter for kids hoping for snow days and grown-up snow fanatics alike on the East Coast.

Halfway by the winter, New York and different main cities alongside the I-95 hall are experiencing a few of their least snowy seasons within the final 50 years. Whereas pockets of the nation have been pummeled by snowstorms, metropolitan areas alongside the East Coast have remained in sneaker climate, with snow boots amassing mud within the closet.

Regardless of snow flurries on Wednesday, New York’s Central Park stays and not using a measurable snowfall, a technical definition that begins at a tenth of an inch. Meaning town is on monitor to beat its report of newest first snowfall, at present set at Jan. 29.

Washington, Philadelphia and Baltimore even have but to obtain a measurable snowfall.

Boston and Windfall have seen extra — a bit of over half a foot for Boston, and a bit of beneath that for Windfall — however these quantities are nonetheless under typical. And Newark has obtained a measly tenth of an inch of recorded snow.

Circumstances have been already in place for a comparatively snowless begin to winter up and down I-95: The area has been hotter than traditional, thanks partly to La Niña — a recurring local weather sample originating within the Pacific Ocean, now happening its third consecutive yr. And the storms which have blown by the nation have adopted considerably extra typical La Niña storm tracks, skirting the coastal mid-Atlantic, mentioned Judah Cohen, a local weather scientist on the weather-risk evaluation agency Atmospheric and Environmental Analysis.

But it surely’s additionally true that snowfall varies immensely season to season, and that luck — good or dangerous, relying on how you’re feeling about snow — has had a hand on this season’s snow drought.

“A lot has to come together right to get snow along the coast,” Mr. Cohen mentioned.

With this dearth of snow, New York has fallen greater than a month behind its common tempo: Town often sees snow by mid-December. The most recent that Philadelphia has seen its first snowfall for a season is Feb. 3 — apart from the winter of 1972–73, when town obtained no measurable snow in any respect. Washington and Baltimore additionally sometimes see snow by mid-December, however late first snowfalls are barely extra frequent. Each cities have recorded a season’s first measurable snow as far out as mid-February.

There’s nonetheless an opportunity for first rate snow alongside the East Coast, mentioned David Robinson, New Jersey’s state climatologist and a professor at Rutgers College. February is the snowiest month within the mid-Atlantic, and, after all, snow can nonetheless arrive in March and even April. There are additionally indicators that La Niña could also be ending, and that the polar vortex may ship in one other wave of chilly air, each of which can herald considerably higher odds of a snow day, he mentioned.

“The tides could turn,” he mentioned. An enormous snowstorm is “never out of the question, even in mild winters.”

Exterior of the I-95 hall, Chicago has additionally fallen almost 10 inches under regular ranges. Minneapolis, nonetheless, is seeing one in every of its snowiest winters of the previous half century. Additional west, Reno, Nev., has seen atypically excessive totals, and the close by Lake Tahoe space has been hit with storm after storm — whereas torrential rains have poured throughout different components of California.

This winter’s excessive variation may be seen simply in a single stretch of upstate New York. Syracuse is one in every of America’s snowiest cities, averaging greater than 120 inches yearly, nevertheless it has obtained simply 25 inches of snow up to now, placing it three toes behind the norm for this time of yr. Close by Rochester has obtained fewer than 15 inches, in contrast with a typical 50 by this time.

But simply to the west of each cities lies a pocket of intense snow: Buffalo is having one in every of its snowiest winters within the final 50 years. Round half of this season’s snow was dropped throughout a single, lethal blizzard.

That sort of concentrated — and sometimes harmful — snowfall is more likely to grow to be extra frequent because the local weather warms. Projections present that hotter temperatures will imply fewer and extra intense snowstorms, as a result of hotter air can maintain extra water vapor: A snowstorm at 30 levels has the potential to unleash extra precipitation than the identical storm 10 levels colder.

Local weather change gained’t essentially imply much less snow, Mr. Cohen mentioned, however it’s going to in all probability imply later first snows, and patchier snow, dumped unexpectedly in an enormous storm or two.

“Snow is very variable,” he mentioned. “Climate change, I think, has taken kind of a volatile situation and made it even more volatile.”