Today marks the first day of spring, but if one were to look
outside, it might not look like spring just yet.

Although winter was pretty mild from the beginning of the year
up until now, November to December brought some rather snowy
weather, and this month has seen its share of snow as well.

David Martin, a meteorologist at the weather center in State
College, said that winter started off in late October in the higher
elevations with some wet snow, noting November was pretty typical
for winter and December had “a very active start.” He explained
that just before Christmas there was very cold air that brought in
some lake effect snow.

“It was a fairly active December for snow and lake-effect snow,”
Martin said.

Then, as if someone turned on the heat, in late December, Martin
said, there was not a lot of snow, and “it was warmer than
normal.”

He also explained the weather was “persistent;” either
persistently cold and snowy or persistently mild and dry.

“Nature has a way of balancing out,” Martin said.

Martin explained that December through February was 2.8 degrees
warmer than it should have been in the Williamsport area, and that
winter for Pennsylvania was generally warmer in the statistics
they’ve worked up so far.

Martin said exact figures for this area as far as how many
inches of snow the area got, how cold it was compared to past
winters and what the low temperatures were, had not been worked up
yet. Those questions were referred to State Climatologist Paul
Knight, who could not be reached for comment over the weekend.

However, records from the Bradford City Fire Department, kept by
Mike Cleveland, weather expert at the fire station, show the
coldest day this past winter was on Dec. 14, 2005, when a
temperature of minus 10 degrees was recorded at 8 a.m., when all
temperatures and weather information are recorded at the
department. The records show the first measurable snow was on Nov.
24, 2005. From that date until Sunday morning, there was a total of
45.5 inches of snow recorded.

Both Gary Alcock Sr., head of public works for the City of
Bradford, and Patricia Shinaberger, McKean County maintenance
manager for the Pennsylvania Department Of Transportation, said
they didn’t have the figures on hand Sunday on how much overtime
was put in this winter. But Shinaberger said there was overtime
this winter, but there was less overtime put in than in other years
due to warm conditions. She said it was a different kind of
winter.

“We haven’t had the deep freezes for a long period of time,” she
said. “Of course, the season is young. Winter isn’t over yet
either.”

Martin said Thursday there’s still a potential of a couple of
weeks of winter-like weather ahead that could be cooler than
normal, as it was last year at this time.

He said there was real mild weather in the area for almost six
weeks from Christmas until almost February.

“The worst of our winter was December,” Alcock said. “We had
crews out probably 21 times during the month to service the
road.”

Alcock said crews kept up-to-date on the weather, watching it on
the computer.

“I feel that we did everything we could to keep them (the roads)
safe,” Shinaberger said. “We were out when we felt it was necessary
to be. We were out there as often as we needed to be. There was
maybe one storm or so that we got behind a little bit, but we used
appropriate treatment when needed.”

Bradford Area School District Superintendent Sandra Romanowski
did not return calls placed for comment on how often school was
canceled or delayed or how many times there was early dismissal
this winter due to inclement weather.