Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Rochester Poised to Break Record For Coldest Month Ever

Rochester is on pace to break the record for the coldest month since record keeping began in 1871. 

Climatologist Jessica Spaccio of the Northeast Regional Climate Center says the current record was an average reading of 12.6 degrees, set back in February, 1934.                         

"If we're able to beat that, we'll take not just the record for February, but all-time coldest month," Spaccio said.

The average temperature for this February so far is 12.4 degrees, and Spaccio doesn't think it will be warm enough Friday or Saturday to push that monthly average above the current record.

You can blame the bone-rattling chill this winter on the jet stream.

"The jet stream is a barrier between the cold northern cold air and the southern warmer air and that has really dipped over the eastern half of the U.S.,” Spaccio said. “What's been different this year than maybe other years is that we just haven't gotten a reprieve. It has been consistently cold."

She said a bitter cold winter does not put to rest concerns about global warming.

"We know that every year we have this inter-year variability where some years and warmer and some years are colder. Overall when we look at the trends, we see that winters are still slowly getting warmer and the seasons are getting shorter, but we still expect to see these dips now and again."

Beth Adams joined WXXI as host of Morning Edition in 2012 after a more than two-decade radio career. She was the longtime host of the WHAM Morning News in Rochester. Her career also took her from radio stations in Elmira, New York, to Miami, Florida.