A Tardy Winter Finally Makes A Tentative Entrance

By Steve Bigham

Fred Hurley and his town highway/snowplow crews joked this week about heading to Florida for the rest of the month. With hardly a trace of snow so far this winter, the plows and their drivers have been kept off the roads. All that finally changed Thursday morning, as the town got its first snowfall of the winter season.

The storm system had enough advance hype to close schools for the day before the first flake hit the ground. When it finally did show up, it did not live up to its reputation. Its effect on Thursday morning traffic was negligible.

So far this winter, mild temperatures and the absence of snow had everyone forgetting what season it is; it may not feel quite like spring, but it certainly doesn’t seem like winter either.

At this time last winter, the area had received less than four inches of snow, but the lakes and ponds were frozen solid. So far, Newtown’s ice fishermen have been forced to remain on shore as temperatures have stayed well above freezing. In fact, area temperatures have risen into the 50s on several occasions this month with the thermometer hitting 60 on January 3.

“This has been a very mild winter so far,” noted Michael Erickson of the Western Connecticut State University weather center. “Generally by this time, we should have 15 to 20 inches of snow. Forty-five inches of snow would be an average year for the Danbury area.”

A high-pressure system known as a “Bermuda High” has been stuck off the Atlantic coast, helping to push warm weather into the region. A very low-pressure system in the northwestern United States and the Pacific has managed to keep the cold air and snow out of much of the country. The frigid air has become stuck in the Alaskan region, making it even colder this winter for the people of Anchorage and the like.

The Thursday snowstorm may have broken the pattern in the Northeast for a while; the storm system is expected to be followed by cold air through the weekend. The coldest days of the year usually fall on or around January 19.

That’s good news for local skiers, who often need a little snow on the ground to get them motivated to hit the slopes.

“They make the snow up north so ski areas have plenty of trails open, but if it’s nice out here, there’s no urge to go skiing,” explained Ed Osterman, a local skiing enthusiast. “If you had snow here, you’d think, ‘Oh God, we’ve got to go skiing.’”

In the meantime, Newtown’s winter budget remains intact. The $80,000 worth of overtime money, the $90,000 for sand and the $60,000 for salt have hardly been touched.