Do you miss looking out of your window on early mornings and finding the ground fully cloaked in snow? How about the excitement of seeing a 100% chance of snow on the weather app? Who can ever forget the snow days we all played in as we enjoyed and cherished a surprise day off from school. 

But where is this winter wonderland now? It has been so long since we’ve had trees covered in white, houses blanketed with snow, and witnessed the beauty of the outdoors when snow illuminates it. 

As we have moved past the middle of winter, communities in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions seem to be confused as to why we haven’t seen much snowfall this year. This has been a surprising occurrence as cold temperatures started arriving early and have even been at single digits in December and February. In fact, in the local area just last week we were in the teens and in New England they saw some of the lowest temperatures ever recorded. You would think that these cold temperatures would’ve brought our region some snow by now, but the opposite has occurred as temperatures vary wildly and are beginning to increase, slowly preparing us for what looks like an early spring. 

Students are not the only ones noticing this lack of snow and true winter weather. In Ian Livingston’s article “D.C., Philly, and New York have seen no snow this winter. What’s going on?”, he contrasts the snowfall in the Western Mountains in states such as Colorado and California to the lack of snow in the Northeast. Livingston claims, “While the western mountains are buried, much of the Northeast is in a snow drought that is creeping into historic territory.” There is no doubt that this year’s unusual absence of snow has made its mark. Several cities along the East Coast are approaching the date of their latest  first accumulation and many are poised to break these records.  New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C’s first snowfall has yet to arrive as all three are running later than average, with Washington being two weeks late, and NYC and Philadelphia over a month late. 

So what does all of this mean for snow lovers? Is it time to stop anticipating snow and start preparing for the arrival of spring, or should we all still cling to the hope that it will snow sometime soon? Either way, springtime is on its way and these bare, lifeless trees will soon be budding and preparing for the rest of the seasons – until we see “winter” again next year.