By Jonathan Erdman
Jan 18 2018 04:00 PM EST
weather.com

Story Highlights

A number of cities in the East and South have had their coldest first half of winter in at least seven years.
A few Northeast cities have seen their coldest start to winter in over 20 years.
However, only a few cities have had a top-10 coldest winter so far.

The first half of winter 2017-18 has been the coldest in at least seven years in a number of cities in the South, Northeast and Ohio Valley.

Through Jan. 16 – roughly the midpoint of meteorological winter – it has been the coldest winter-to-date since 2010-11 in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Cleveland, Louisville, St. Louis, Nashville, Raleigh and New Orleans, according to data from the Southeast Regional Climate Center.

You have to go back to 2009-10 to find a colder first half of winter in Atlanta, Corpus Christi, Houston, Oklahoma City and San Antonio.

In Lower Michigan, including Detroit, Flint and Grand Rapids, only the winter of 2000-01 has started out colder this century.

In parts of New York and New England, it’s the coldest start to winter this century.
Buffalo, Syracuse and Burlington, Vermont, have had their chilliest half-winter in 22 years – since 1995-1996.
Topping that, Boston and Bangor, Maine, have had their coldest first six weeks of winter since George H. W. Bush completed his first year in office – 1989-90.

Boston saw more than double the number of colder-than-average days in the first six weeks of winter (30) as warmer-than-average (14).

Similarly, Detroit’s colder days outnumbered warmer days 29 to 17, as did Houston (28 to 15) from Dec. 1 through Jan. 16.
After an early December cold outbreak set the table for some unusual Southern snow, a prolonged cold snap settled in for the holidays, bringing the coldest first week of any year on record to dozens of cities in the East.
Following a brief January thaw, more bitter cold plunged into the Deep South this past week, bringing the coldest temperature seen in decades in Greenwood, Mississippi, and the first freeze felt in Tampa in seven years.

Not a Top 10, For Most

Despite the brutal cold, the first half of winter 2017-2018 has not cracked the top-10 coldest starts to winter on record in most of these cities, according to the SERCC.

For instance, Dec. 1-Jan. 16 was tied for the 22nd-coldest such period in both Boston and Detroit, and tied for 20th-coldest in Houston, with at least 125 years of records in each location.

Despite some frigid temperatures in the 20s, 30s and even 40s below zero during the aforementioned cold snaps, the December-through-mid-January period wasn’t nearly a top-10 coldest first half of winter in the northern and central Plains.
This was due to a very warm first three weeks or so of December from the Dakotas to Kansas and Missouri, somewhat washing out the subsequent cold snaps.
For instance, Bismarck, North Dakota, had three early December days with highs in the 50s; average highs are in the upper 20s.
This was followed 10 days with lows in the minus 20s from late December into mid-January in the capital of the Peace Garden State.
There were some locations with at least a 60-year period of record that did crack their top-10 coldest first halves of winter, including:

Bangor, Maine: Tied for 10th-coldest in 82 years of records
Glens Falls, New York: Tied for 8th-coldest in 73 years of records
LaGuardia Airport (NYC): Tied for 8th-coldest in 61 years of records
Parkersburg, West Virginia: Eighth-coldest in 67 years of records
Salisbury, Maryland: Tied for 10th-coldest in 70 years of records
Waynesville, North Carolina: Tenth-coldest in 112 years of records
Biloxi, Mississippi: Seventh-coldest in 110 years of records
Flint, Michigan: Ninth-coldest in 122 years of records

On the other end of the spectrum, it’s been the warmest first half of winter on record in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Long Beach, California, according to the SERCC.
Even America’s northernmost town, Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, is having its warmest start to winter in 98 years of records.

So while it certainly has been cold at times in the eastern two-thirds of the country this winter, take some comfort in knowing it has been colder in past years.
If that doesn’t cheer you up, we’re also moving past the coldest time of year, on average.

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FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Ed Doddridge @edoddridge