Impressive snowfall in Flagstaff makes for 5th snowiest meteorological winter on record

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - If you think this winter has been much wetter and colder across Arizona, you’re right! A series of major winter storms have brought significant rain, snow, and a big drop in temperatures.

Meteorologists measure winter starting on December 1st and going through February 28th. The National Weather Service Flagstaff crunched the numbers and found the 2022-23 meteorological winter was the 5th snowiest since records started back in the late 1800s. So far this season, the NWS Flagstaff team says the area has picked up 118.9″ of snow. That’s more than 50″ above what the average is for this time of year.

“We have just had a very active winter weather pattern so far this year, we’ve just been getting these multiple winter storms that have been coming through the region and this has been producing a lot of snowfall and cooler temperatures across the states,” Isaac Smith, a meteorologist at the NWS Phoenix office, said.

In the Phoenix area, we saw our wettest “meteorological winter” since 2009-2010 with 3.42″ of the rain picked up at Sky Harbor from December 1st to February 28th.

Temperatures have also been much colder, too! According to the NWS Phoenix, the average temperature for February 2023 was 57.1°. That’s nearly 3° below normal for the month. January also saw temperatures almost 3° below normal as well.

After this major winter storm leaves Arizona, what can we expect for March? We asked Smith what his team is anticipating.

“As we head into the middle part of March, the latest indications is that we’ll start seeing drier than normal conditions set in, but it looks like we will continue to see below normal temperatures,” Smith said.

Copyright 2023 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.