Leaping Over Weather Stats on This Day in Weather History

It's not often we get to wade through an extra day on the calendar, but today is Leap day, so let's talk about it. Weather records started in Milwaukee back in 1871. That gives us thirty-seven Leap days in the books. The average high and low for the city on this date shakes out to 34 and 20 respectively. But with gradual warming in recent decades the normal high and low over the last 30 year period is 39 and 24. The city has definitely broken away from those norms, here's the extremes. 

 Other notable Leap day weather nuggets include the largest snow depth of 20 inches back in 1960. Shoot, we barely have that much snow this whole winter season, just 23.9" to be exact. If you're keeping track that's 16 inches below normal and for meteorological winter which spans December through February we end 22nd least snowy with just 19.5" of snow. On the flip side we end as the warmest on record. 

But what kind of odds are we talking on this date for weather in Milwaukee? The data shows we have about a coin flip chance for any type of precipitation, about a 16 percent chance for snow or a 43 percent chance for at least flakes flying.

In terms of temperatures, the year 2000 was the only leap year to reach the 60s. For the 37 leap days in our climate books, four have had highs in the 50s, three have been in the 40s, 16 have stayed close to norms in the 30s, 9 have been chilly in the 20s and four have been cold with highs only in the teens.

This leap day should hit 40 by later this afternoon with no wet weather in sight. Our El Niño season should continue to feature warmer temps in the days ahead as we flip the calendar to March.

I'm meteorologist Rebecca Schuld