Colder than normal

Much of mainland Alaska had one of the coldest winters in decades, capped off by the coldest March ever in some places.
The Bering Strait region from about Golovin westward was spared the sustained very low temperatures that our neighbors to the south and east faced.
Even so, each month —December through March —was colder than normal (except for St. Lawrence Island).
This week's Climate Watch graphic plots the average temperature at Nome for the four months December through March each winter since 1906-1907.
Why include March in the count of winter? Simple: March is the coldest month about 20 percent the time in Nome, including this year. By contemporary standards, this was a cold “extended winter,” ranking as the second coldest of the 21st century (only 2011-2012 was colder).
However, prior to the mid-1970s, this would have been a fairly routine winter: colder than usual but nothing extraordinary. This is reflected in the 120-year trend, with the December through March average temperature now about 4ºF higher than it was in the earlier 20th century.