NORFOLK, Va. — Now that February is behind us, we officially wrap up Meteorological Winter as well. For Hampton Roads, our winter wasn't bad at all.
While "Winter" officially begins with the Winter Solstice (Dec 21, 2022) and continues through the Vernal or Spring Equinox (Mar 20, 2023), Meteorological Winter includes the months of December, January, and February.
March 1 marks the beginning of Meteorological Spring.
However, if you spent much time outdoors around Hampton Roads this February, you may have thought Spring had already sprung!
Let's take a look at some of those temperature highs.
A look at Hampton Roads temperature highs in February
We saw a pattern of rising weekday temperatures, followed by significant weekend temperature drops.
After a chilly start to the month, the weather pattern flipped and most of the month was quite comfortable. In fact, 19 of the 28 days were warmer than average.
When averaging all the daily high and low temperatures observed at Norfolk International Airport during the month, February had an average of 50.8°.
That was 6.6° above normal, making it the fourth warmest February on record for Norfolk.
When you check out the top five warmest Februarys in Norfolk, it is worth noting that three of them have occurred in the past six years!
Norfolk sees its 8th warmest Meteorological Winter
And this February wasn't the only relatively warm month for Hampton Roads. January was also abnormally warm. The mean temperature for Norfolk in January was 47.8°, which is 5.6° above normal.
The warm start to 2023 masked what was actually a cooler than normal end to 2022. December had a mean temperature of 44.0, which was 2.1° below normal.
While official numbers will be finalized and reviewed by climate experts with NOAA's National Weather Service, the preliminary data points to the average temperatures from December 2022, January 2023 and February 2023 combining to land as the eighth warmest Meteorological Winter on record for Norfolk.
While the winter months were relatively easy on our heating and energy costs for Hampton Roads, parts of the western United States were hit with prolonged periods of colder and more extreme weather. For stretches of time, California experienced tremendous rainfalls and large snowfalls over higher elevations.
We will still have to see how Meteorological Spring plays out, but for Norfolk, early March is already off to a warm start!