It appears New Jerseyans can keep their snow blowers in storage for a while, even though we're nearing the end of January. Watch video
It's a rare January in New Jersey when more snow falls down south in Atlantic City than up north in the hilly Sussex County town of Wantage.
But that's exactly what has happened this month. With just a few days to go before January 2017 comes to a close and no big snowstorms on the horizon, Atlantic City has gotten 7.0 inches of snow this month, while Wantage has had only 4.1 inches.
During a normal January, the casino city gets just 4.5 inches of snow and the high-elevation township in the state's northwestern region gets about 16 inches of snow.
"We are way behind," said Nick Stefano, a Wantage resident. "Way below normal."
Stefano should know. He heads the Sussex County Weather Network, and he's one of the trained weather spotters who measures snow in his town during every snowstorm and sends those readings to the National Weather Service, where it becomes part of the official climate record.
Even though he loves snow, Stefano can't be too disappointed by the small amount of frozen precipitation that has fallen this month. Along with many other towns in Sussex County, Wantage had a very snowy December this winter.
Last month, Wantage picked up a total of 15.6 inches of snow from a series of small storm systems. That's 4 inches above normal for December.
Statewide snow stats
Across New Jersey, most regions got hardly any snow in December, but the Newark area is actually running about an inch above normal in snowfall this month, with 8.8 inches so far, according to data from the National Weather Service. After getting just a trace of snow in December, Atlantic City is running 2.5 inches above normal for January, thanks to the half-foot of snow that fell during a snowstorm earlier this month.
New Brunswick received only 2 inches of snow in December and is slightly below average in January, with 7.6 inches of snow measured this month, according to the office of New Jersey State Climatologist David Robinson at Rutgers University. Statistics from Rutgers and Stefano show towns across the normally snowy northwestern region of the state fared well in December but are as much as 12 inches below normal in snowfall this month.
Any storms brewing?
Even though the long-range forecasts don't show any signs of a major snowstorm brewing in the next week -- we could get some minor disturbances with light snow showers Sunday night into Monday and perhaps a few days later -- the National Weather Service notes there's still a lot of winter ahead of us.
"While it has been a poor winter for snow so far, we still have about eight more weeks where winter can do considerable damage," the weather service's forecast office in New Jersey wrote in its forecast discussion Friday morning.
Keep in mind, February is usually the snowiest month of the year in New Jersey. And Stefano reminds us that the Garden State can get hit with big snowstorms as late as March or April.
"One of my biggest snowstorms up here was April 1, 1997," Stefano said, noting about 2 feet of snow piled up in his hometown of Wantage and 27 inches accumulated in High Point. Here's a video he posted on YouTube showing footage from that storm, which started as rain on March 31 and changed to snow that lasted into the following day.
Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @LensReality or like him on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.