Maybe it's some kind of meteorological karma. Or just another example of the fickleness of New England weather.
This December and last February have been polar opposites in temperature terms, one warm and one cold.
The average temperature for December was 46.9 degrees through Sunday.
The remaining four days of the month are expected to be a bit cooler (not to mention the storm expected to arrive Tuesday). If the current forecast holds, it would bring the average for the month down slightly, to about 45.7 degrees.
That would shatter the previous record for the warmest December — 41 degrees in 2006.
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And it would be about 12.3 degrees higher than the historical average temperature for December of 33.4 degrees.
As for February, call it December's evil twin.
The average temperature for that execrable month was 19 degrees, compared with the historical average of 29.7 degrees. That made it the second-coldest February in Boston's history, trailing only 1934, when the average was 17.5 degrees. Temperature records date 143 years, to 1872.
Of course, what most people will remember is the snow. A total of 64.8 inches fell on the city during February, making it the snowiest February on record by 23.2 inches, according to data from the National Weather Service. Snowfall records date 124 years, to 1891. Historically, Boston has gotten an average of 13 inches of snow that month.
The cold was a key ingredient in the misery of last winter, helping to create lighter, fluffier snow that piled up higher. The cold also prevented the snow piles from melting.
When measured as a liquid, only 3.37 inches of precipitation fell during that month, just a hair above the historical average of 3.35 inches for February.
Matt Rocheleau can be reached at matthew.rocheleau@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mrochele.
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