Despite the snow on the ground, recent Hanover temperatures have been well above average. But according to the National Weather Service, the unseasonably warm weather will not last.
The average temperature was 38 degrees Fahrenheit for the first week of January in Concord, N.H. The average January low, according to the Weather Channel, is 9 degrees. The website is predicting lows in the single digits for later this week.
January forecasts look to be consistent with last year's pattern. Temperatures dropped to single digits this week last year, and by the middle of the month, lows were consistently below zero.
"It's going to get much colder," said Art Lester, a spokesman for the National Weather Service. "By mid-January the temperature will be well below average."
Torey Alling '07, from North Pole, Alaska, said she doesn't mind the weather so far.
"I was so happy when I got here. It was like spring-time -- only really early," Alling said. "Fairbanks was negative 25 when I left ."
As for snow, according to Dartmouth Skiway Director Doug Holler, there has been "more of it and less of it" in the surrounding area. There was a lot of snow early on, Holler said, but subsequent rain washed it away. Ski conditions were better last year, when there was 24 inches of snow by Christmas night. Although snowfall this season has been roughly six inches above average, there was only about two inches of snow left on the ground as of yesterday morning.
Holler said that he does not use snow forecasts to predict skiing conditions. "They're too unreliable," Holler said. "It's the weather, they can't get tomorrow right."
Even though forecasts are predicting a steep drop in Hanover temperatures over the next couple weeks, Lester admitted that weather forecasts are unreliable and that predicting weather beyond the next few weeks is difficult. According to data from the past 30 years, January has been both the coldest and snowiest month in this region.
"It's the month with the most wintry weather," Lester said.
The first weeks of last Winter term saw below-average temperatures and bitterly cold wind chill factors.
