This Has Been Flint’s Worst Winter Since the 1970’s

The Winter of 2014 has brought Flint a brutal combination of consistently frigid temps and record breaking amounts of snow. See the data that supports those statements -- as well as some more of my complaining -- here.

This winter is the worst. It has seemed longer, snowier and colder than I can ever remember it being before. There's actually a pretty good reason for that... because it has been! I was born in 1980 and Flint hasn't seen awful, soul-crushing conditions like this since the 1970s.

According to the National Weather Service, it hasn't been this cold in Flint since the winter of 1978-79 and it's our fifth coldest winter on record. The average temperature for this winter has been just 19.4 degrees. We've also seen record-breaking lows like the January 9th temp of -21 degrees w/o windchill and February 28th it dropped to -15 in the overnight. To summarize: s--- sucks!

Flint has accumulated more than 73 inches of snow, making this the sixth snowiest winter on record and much higher than our average of 47.4 inches. If this drags on much longer, we might even shatter the record of 82 inches, which happened in 1974-75. We are also just days away from breaking another area record for most consecutive days with at least an inch of snow on the ground. The record of 88 days was set back in 1963, right now we're at 84 (thanks for the heads up on that record Edward Hintz).

Schools have taken a ton of snow days this year and every time we post that information on our Facebook page, there are at least a couple people who say something like "We're raising these kids to be a bunch of weak cry-babies. Back when I was in school..." That's usually where I stop reading. Everyone likes to believe that things were so much more difficult when they were kids, which is true in some cases. However, that is not the case here. Most of the people saying that we're overreacting about the winter are my age, which means they've never seen a winter this bad either... so shut it.

Before you start saying that this winter "hasn't been that bad" and "people need to suck it up," you should think about all of the true facts I've included in this article and join us in our misery. Misery does love company, after all. Besides, you can't tell me that this winter doesn't suck.

There are only 17 days left until the "official" end of the winter season, but I have a feeling we're probably going into overtime this year. Stay tough, Flint.