Vintage 2017: Winter

I'm continuing with blogging about Vintage Notes as a way to remind myself what kind of conditions we were looking at during the growing season. I thought I had winter figured out, having lived here for more than 30 years. January can get quite cold with temperatures that can be below freezing but during the second or third week in January, there is generally a thaw. After January, temperatures still can be cold, but the worst of it is over. Not!
Beginning in the winter of 2013-2014, when we had new vines in the ground, we experienced what the weather forecasters were calling a polar vortex. We had so much snow in 2014 and ditto in 2015. However, in 2016, we had a very mild winter which boded well for us because we were on the hook to drill 4200 holes for our new plants.
If you believe Punxsutawney Phil, we are in for 6 more weeks of winter. I can vouch that February 14th, Valentine's Day will be the worse snowfall in the northeast because that is what the forecasters have said for the last three years. I would say that 2 out of 3 times, they did get it right. Here is what I located for the month of January in 2016 compared to 2017:

The general trend does appear to be a cold dip during the first part of January followed by a slight warmup during the latter part of the month. Although we have not had much snow, we have had a good share of rain, which is different from last year. I retrieved the above information from here: AccuWeather.com.