Boston has registered its snowiest winter season in recorded history. The National Weather Service (NWS) in Taunton, Massachusetts said that the official measurement of 108.6 inches at the Logan International Airport surpassed the season record set in 1996-1997, which was 107.9 inches.
The new record was set on Sunday, March 15, at about 7 p.m. after the storm left 2.9 inches in the Massachusetts' largest and capital city. The record-breaking inches, the most snowfall since record keeping started in 1872, happened after a day of rain started melting snow piles around the city.
The 2014-2015 season has been hailed as one of Boston's most challenging winters with a month-long series of major storms that paralyzed the transit system and narrowed the roads, slowing down things in the city.
It was not also just the seasonal record that Boston broke this winter. The city has broken a dozen other records since late January. Boston's five-, seven-, 10-, 20-, 30- and 40-day snowfall records have all been broken in just a couple of weeks, with February becoming the snowiest month following over 45 inches of snow falling in just two weeks. By the last day of the month, the total was 64.8 inches. February was likewise Boston's coldest month on record, having an average temperature of 16.1 degrees.
Residents have varied reactions and coping mechanisms to adjust to the record-breaking season.
The 46-year-old Bruce Jurgens said that alcohol has been his friend during the cold season, but 19-year-old Annie Armstrong, on the other hand, said that she listened to a lot of beachy music and pretended that the harsh winter was not happening.
Although some take pride in the new records, the thick piles of snow have taken a financial toll on the city. Mayor Marty Walsh said that the cost of removing snow this winter is anticipated to reach $50 million or double what Boston planned for this year.
"We budgeted about $18 million," Walsh said. "We're probably at about $45 million that we've paid on snow removal, probably going to head toward $50 million."
Walsh said that the city has so far taken 30,000 truckloads of snow from the street and melted more than 50,000 tons of snow as 263,000 miles of roadway have been plowed.
Walsh hopes that the city could learn a lesson from the record-breaking harsh winter. He said that some of the ideas that they have learned this time may be used to save money with snow removal next year.
Photo: Extra Zebra | Flickr
