SPOKANE, Wash. — It was easily Spokane's largest snowfall of the season. A fresh 4.5 inches fell at the airport during the overnight hours on Tuesday and it was the first day with at least 1 inch of snow since Dec. 28.
But as we head into February, we're entering the final stretch of winter weather for the area. Statistically, this could very well be the last time we see a snow this big in the 2018-19 season. Only four out of the last 18 years did Spokane record a snowfall of more than five inches in the month of February. However, it did not happen for the past two years in February.
The two largest single-day snow falls for the entire season were 7.3 inches on Feb. 14, 2018 and 6.9 inches on Feb. 3, 2017.
"February is still winter. Yeah, it's the last month of our meteorological winter. We typically get average of about a little over 7 inches of snow during the month of February. I don't see why February would be any different from what we've seen during January and December. And that is, February will probably have warmer than average temperatures," says KREM 2 Chief Meteorologist Tom Sherry.
El Nino is playing its part in term of reducing how much snow Spokane has seen this season. After Tuesday night's snowfall, we're now a shade under 20 inches this season, only 64 percent of what we normally see to date. The average is 31.3 inches. But we're right on average precipitation wise - rain plus melted snow - since Oct. 1. Spokane has picked up 7.86 inches of precipitation and the average between Oct. 1 and Jan. 22 is 7.12 inches.
At this pace, Spokane is on track for about 5 inches of snow in February, but whether that falls all at once or spread out over the month is yet to be determined.