Third of winter gone without even first inch of snowfall

After one of the two measurable snowfalls the Greencastle area did see in December, one resident shared his disdain for the white stuff.

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With December in the rearview mirror, one-third of meteorological winter is now behind us, and it appears that the El Nino-fueled predictions of a warmer, wetter winter are holding serve.

For through the first 31 days of winter, the National Weather Service at Indianapolis has logged only 0.5 inches of snow for central Indiana, marking one of the least-snowiest Decembers on record.

Measurable snow fell only on Dec. 4 and 5 locally with trace amounts occurring Dec 3, 6, 10, 16 and 29.

A normal December in central Indiana generally sees 6.9 inches of snowfall and 3.17 inches of precipitation. December 2018 did rack up 3.79 inches of precipitation, virtually all occurring as rainfall.

The 0.5 inches of December 2018 snow fell just outside of the top 10 of least snowy Decembers, which is led by 1889 when nary a flake fell on Putnam County.

Meanwhile, only trace amounts were recorded in 1931 and 1940 and 2014 saw just 0.1 inches of snow.

Tied for 10th place in least December snow at 0.4 inches are 1971 and 1984.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the snowiest December of all time was 1973 with 27.3 inches.

The snowiest winter of all time was 2013-14 at a whopping 52.2 inches of white stuff.

With much of the next week expected to see above-normal temperatures, the chance of snow is unlikely through the first 10 days of January.

But that doesn’t mean we’re on track to be the least snowiest winter ever. That occurred in 1931-32 when only 0.2 inches of snow was noted, so that’s already been exceeded despite our minimal 2018-19 total.

And as recently as the winter of 1997-98, we had a winter where only 3.9 inches of total snowfall occurred, good for fifth all time behind 1941-42 (2.0), 1918-19 (2.6) and 1972-73 (2.0), as well as the pace-setting winter of 1931-32.