Winter 2002-03 Review

The winter of 2002-'03 was an El Nino winter and started a stretch of snowy winters across northeast Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania. Thanksgiving and Christmas were white (in most areas) and the winter was just getting started. It was not overly cold during the early part of winter but unseasonably cold air and frequent snows began soon after the new year began and just kept going until mid March. There were no particularly noteworthy snows although Erie, PA saw nearly a foot of lake effect snow the second week of January. The frequent snows added up and the winter totals ended just shy of 100 inches at Cleveland (95.7 inches). Over 150 inches fell in the northeast Ohio snowbelt in Geauga County and almost 210 inches were measured at Bud and Ginny's residence in Edinboro, PA. There would have been even more lake effect snow except that Lake Erie was frozen over the second half of winter due to the consistent cold. The ice on the lake was over 2 feet thick in spots. January and February ranked as some of the coldest ever. January of 2003 registered an average temperature of 19.3 F at Youngstown (as an example) compared to the winter before (January of 2002) with an average temperature of 33.5 F.

Summary of Snowfall at Climate Sites
2002-03	Oct 02	Nov 02	Dec 02	Jan 03	Feb 03	Mar 03	Apr 03	May 03	Total '02-03
Toledo	0.0	5.7	13.6	14.1	18.8	3.7	0.5	0.0	56.4
Mansfield	0.1	6.5	11.3	19.0	16.5	3.6	T	0.0	57.0
Cleveland	T	6.1	22.4	30.3	30.1	6.7	0.1	T	95.7
Akron-Canton	0.1	5.4	11.5	19.1	17.3	2.5	T	0.0	55.9
Youngstown	0.3	5.8	14.1	25.5	26.4	5.1	0.3	T	77.5
Erie PA	T	21.1	26.9	51.8	32.6	8.1	2.5	0.0	143.0