CHICAGO — Chicago’s historic snow drought continues and as February closes the records continue to fall.

Total snowfall for January and February has totaled  just 0.6 inches (all of it in January), the least on record since the city’s snow climatology began in the winter of 1884-85. The previous low snow totals for the January-February tandem were 2.5 inches in 1931 and 2.9 inches in 1922.

February 2017 will go into the record books as only the third February with just a trace of snow, joining 1998 and 1987.

In fact there, have previously been only five winter months (December, January, February) with just a trace of snow, when adding December 2014, 1912 and 1889 to the mix. The least snow ever recorded in a Chicago January was 0.2 inches in 1928.

Through February 28, the city has gone 73 days without at least one inch of snow falling on a calendar day during meteorological winter. The last occurrence was 1.7 inches on December 17, besting the old record of 66 days set in the winter of 1921-22 that extended from December 25-February 28.

Chicago has also set a record for lack of snow cover(defined as one inch of more of snow on the ground at the city’s official weather station).

This winter the city’s last official snow cover was on Christmas Day when 2 inches covered the ground.

Never, in the city’s 133 winters of record, has there been a January and February without a snow cover.

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