A SNOW-LESS Winter in Bahstin...

Winter easing its grip on Northeast
Temperatures rising 0.8 degrees a decade

The quintessential New England winter - frozen ponds, frigid days, and neighborhoods blanketed in white - is quietly fading away, as the season gets warmer and less snowy, according to an exhaustive new study.

Analyzing four decades of winter climate data, beginning in 1965, University of New Hampshire scientists found that regional temperatures are rising at a rate of 0.8 degrees per decade. Meanwhile, the number of days with snow on the ground is decreasing at the rate of 3.6 days per decade, the study found.

Both trends have intensified with time and were strongest in the heart of winter - January and February.

"A lot of people who have lived in the Northeast for 30 to 40 years have witnessed a distinct change in the character of their Northeast winter," said Elizabeth Burakowski, lead author of the study and a climate researcher at UNH. "Climate has changed in the past, and it will change in the future, but what makes this period distinct is we're witnessing this change in a human lifetime."

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Why do we live in the God-forsaken middle of this continent?