NORTHEAST, U.S. — How cold is it? According to the Northeast Regional Climate Center in this region of the country, records for cold temperatures and snowfall were falling everywhere in February. The Center writes, “Six airport climate sites had their all-time snowiest start to February, with Boston, MA, seeing a whopping 58.5 inches (nearly 5 feet) of snow. In two weeks, Boston has had more snow than they normally get in an entire snow season (Oct-May) and Worcester, MA, has had more snow than they normally get during winter (Dec-Feb). In fact, much of New England, New York, and the northern half of Pennsylvania saw well above normal snowfall.

“Repeated blasts of Arctic air have kept most of the Northeast extremely cold during the first half of February. Caribou, ME, and Islip, NY, had their coldest start to February on record, with Caribou a frigid 13.4 degrees below normal. All 35 airport climate sites saw well below normal temperatures, with 27 sites ranking the period among their top 20 coldest starts to February.”

This came while the West Coast states from California to Alaska were experiencing some of the warmest winter months on record.

The global figures for February are not yet available, but when they are tabulated they may well follow the pattern set in January, which also saw very cold temperatures and repeated snow and ice storms in the Northeast United States.

However, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), when the global picture is seen, January 2015 was a very warm month. From NOAA: “The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for January 2015 was the second highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880. The January global land surface temperature was also second highest on record, while the global ocean surface temperature was third highest.”