The warm winter in the East coast this year (2020)

Landed in New York in February and there was no snow

I have always hated the cold, it’s the main reason I refused to move to the east coast till recently. There have been so many times that I wanted to move to Toronto, Ontario, or Montreal (their winter is scary), but every time winter kicks in, I change my mind and fall right back in love with these two cities when it's their spring or summer. I am not sure why I have always hated winter, maybe it’s because I believe I am part dolphin and need to be in the ocean (warm ocean); but regardless, winter is my least favorite time of the year.

Just over two years ago, I accepted a job offer and decided to move from the west coast to the east coast of the USA. I got to the city in early November of 2017. It was freezing. It looked amazing because of the snow. I was not expecting snow in November, but there was snow everywhere. I knew it was going to be a long winter for me. The locals laughed at me and told me it used to be colder a few years back. A year later, the winter did not kick in till around Christmas. This was a big change from the previous year.

I was ready for the winter of 2019/2020, I finally had real winter coats and I was ready for the winter. My cousin and her kids had never seen real winter and wanted to play in the snow. I advised them to visit me in January of 20202 as I remembered January being one of the coldest months (at least with my 2 years' experience living in the east coast). They did and flew to see me in January (the last week of January). Unfortunately for them, that week was the warmest week since the winter. People were wearing shorts and flip flops. These kids were coming from Texas and thought the winter here was a joke. These are kids that have only read about winter or seen it in movies or pictures and were trying to experience winter and the universe gave them nothing but the sun and hot days and nights. The weird thing is, Seattle and Vancouver had more snow than many cities across the east coast this year (2019/2020 winter). Seattle and Vancouver are two cities that hardly have any snow, to begin with.

Pittsburgh pretty much had no winter in 2020, and from what I saw in New York, there was no winter there either. I was curious about Toronto as this is generally a cold city in the winter. Would Toronto have any winter? I arrived in Toronto and there was hardly any snow, but they were expecting to get some snow that night in February of 2020. This would be my first real snow this winter if it happens.

The only winter I saw lasted less than 10 hours and all that snow was gone

I woke up in the morning and everything was white. They just had their first real snow and it was the coldest day of winter. Would it continue?

After 7 hours, the snow is melting and it was gone after another 3 hours

The snow stopped by midday and by the following day, there was hardly any snow on the ground. I was told I must have brought the snow as they hadn't had any snow this winter. Although I am not a fan of the cold, it was nice to see snow once this winter. The only snow we had in Pittsburgh this year was wet snow that only lasted about 3 hours.

One may think the U.S is the only country experiencing almost no winter in 2020, but this is not true. Even cold places like Canada are witnessing a very mild winter. There are places in Canada with snow and cold days, but compared to past years, these places are still far warmer. Japan, for example, was forced to close ski resorts prematurely because of low snowfalls this year. I was in Ontario, Canada and one lady said last year she was stuck at home for 5 days and could not go to work because of the snow, but this year she is moving around like it's spring.

This has been a very warm winter (except for the folks in Alaska), and although I am enjoying it, I know it is not a good thing and true signs that global warming is real. Well, it has always been a fact, but this makes it scary. Meteorologists claim the reason for the unusually mild winter on the east coast in 2020 has to do with the polar vortex. The polar vortex is a circulating stream of air that forms over the Arctic during winter. This year it is supposedly staying rigid and in place, keeping the cold air mostly locked up north. It is believed that December 2019 and January 2020 were one of the warmest on record going back to 1895, with no part of the U.S. Projected to have a below-average temperature this winter.

The question is, would you rather the snow or the rain. Most of what would have been snow are now rain, and although the temperature is not very cold, rain in the winter can be annoying and it stops you from doing many things. I would rather go for a run in the snow if the weather is not very cold than in the rain. What about you?