(Bloomberg) -- Meteorological spring will start March 1, so this seems as good a time as any to run a few numbers as we head into February’s final week.

As of midnight Monday, Boston had received 99.9 inches (8.3 feet or 2.5 meters) of snow at Logan International Airport, the National Weather Service said. You almost want it to snow one more time just to get over the 100-inch barrier (OK, at least I do).

Boston is still shy of its all-time high of 107.6 inches set in 1995-1996. Given that the city has a history of snow as late as May, there’s still plenty of opportunity to crack that record.

While Boston has grabbed many of the winter misery headlines this season, there has been enough pain to go around.

In November, though it wasn’t quite winter yet, lake-effect snow buried the Buffalo, New York, area, with at least one location getting 88 inches in the course of a week.

Then there is Marquette, Michigan, which has had 151.6 inches so far this season. They’ve had their share of lake-effect blizzards, too.

The thing about this winter is that it hasn’t been all snow, ice and cold. In the contiguous 48 states, the last month of 2014 was the second-warmest December in records going back to 1895, while the first month of 2015 came in as the 24th-warmest January, according to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina.

NYC Cold

Since then, things have gotten plenty colder.

Through Feb. 22, New York’s Central Park posted 20 days with below-normal average temperatures. Chicago had 18 of 22 days below-normal and Houston split with 11 below and 11 above.

“Wow, this has got to be the most volatile we have witnessed yet,” said Teri Viswanath, director of commodity strategy at BNP Paribas SA in New York. “Now it appears that we’re going to have a very cold February and March.

Winter’s mild center was enough to help drop natural gas futures below $3 per million British thermal units in New York, yet the slide in temperatures since may bring about a correction as more gas gets burned to keep homes warm, she said. As of Monday, gas had declined 26% since the start of the heating season in November.

The chill across much of the U.S. won’t only mean more demand for the fuel, it will also cause some land-based gas wells to freeze, crimping production.

‘‘The market hasn’t caught up yet,” Viswanath said.

Warmer West

In the western U.S., the story all winter long has been the opposite that of the East.

Warmer weather has been bad news for a region struggling with drought. The higher temperatures have meant more rain than snow in the mountains where a heavy snowpack is key to providing water later in the year.

There are some snow sensors in the mountains of Oregon that have nothing to measure, Kathie Dello, deputy director of the Oregon Climate Service, said on a conference call last week. She lamented that there isn’t a way to ship Boston’s snow west.

As part of her presentation, she showed photos of brown dirt at the top of the Hoodoo Butte ski area.

“Never give up, never say die,” Hoodoo Ski & Recreation said on its Facebook page earlier this month. “Keep praying for snow.”

The current maximum depth is 1.3 inches, according to its website. A year ago it was 67.1 inches,

Across most of Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona, drought conditions are expected to persist or worsen, according to the U.S. Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

By June, the parts of Oregon that aren’t already parched by drought may get there, along with a large part of Washington, the climate center said in its seasonal outlook last week.

Meanwhile, in Boston there is a 30% chance of snow Tuesday night. Even a dusting would be enough to put the city over the 100-inch mark.

Special Reports /

Westerners are skiing on dirt while Boston snowfall reaches 99.9 inches

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