Terry L. Ettinger Horticulture Consulting Services
Meeting The Needs Of Today With A Vision For The Future
February Weather
Average High Temperature: 33.5°F
Record High Temperature: 79°F (the 19th, 1981)
Average Low Temperature: 15.5°F
Record Low Temperature: -26°F (the 18th, 1979)
Average Precipitation: 2.12" inches
Maximum Precipitation: 5.38" (1951)
Minimum Precipitation: 0.63" (1987)
Average Snowfall: 20.1"
Record Snowfall: 72.6" (1958)
Least Snowfall: 5.7" (1999)
Finally, for the first time since August,
the daily
average high is on the rise, from 31°F on the 1st and 2nd, to a
relatively balmy 37°F on the last day of the month! And,
fortunately, we tend not to get the extreme fluctuations in
temperature that are relatively common in December and January.
While you're not going to be planning any picnics this month, you can start to see some light at the end of the long winter tunnel. This especially good news as we're all beginning to suffer the effects of the dense cloud cover that's so common across Central New York from October into spring - thanks to the open water of Lake Ontario!
February often provides sufficient mild weather to get much of your winter pruning of fruit trees and grapevines finished. And, if you enjoy maple syrup, sugar bushes are often flowing at near peak during sunny days at the end of the month.
Out in your garden, it's not at all extraordinary to see the
buttercup-yellow flowers of winter aconites mixing with the pure white flowers of snowdrops
(at left)
during the last week or so of the month! And, you can always bring
some of your garden inside by forcing into bloom stems of forsythia,
lilacs, crabapples and other early spring-flowering trees and
shrubs.