Relentless cold keeps heaters working
www.publicopiniononline.com By JIM HOOK Senior writer Public Opinion/Markell DeLoatch
Winter persists: Garrett Stoner, 5, plays Tuesday in front of an igloo he helped his dad, Larry Stoner, build in front of their home on Knob Hill Road, Fayetteville. It may be pretty to gaze upon, and fun to play with, but record amounts of snow and months of cold temperatures have increased the local demand for energy.
The winter cold wasn't severe, but it was unrelenting.
The winter of 2002-03 is the 11th-coldest winter in Shippensburg in 70 years.
The cold may not have been a record-breaker, but it sure felt like it following one of the warmest winters on record. This season was nearly 10 degrees colder on average than the winter of 2001-02 in Chambersburg.
"This winter produced persistent cold throughout all three months unlike other winters where there may be one very cold month, then another average or warm month," said William Rense, professor of geography and earth science at Shippensburg University.
Climatologists define winter as the months of December, January and February. In Shippensburg, February was the 10th coldest on record, January the 18th and December the 22nd.
Larry Stoner Jr. is sending photos of the igloo he built at his home near Fayetteville to his uncle in Anchorage, Alaska.
"Here's what snow looks like," Stoner said. "They haven't had snow in a month."
He built the igloo, his first, in three hours on Sunday after starting a snow fort with his 5-year-old son, Garrett.
"I was using a shovel to cut the snow," Stoner said. "It chopped real nice into blocks. Garrett helped my stack the blocks and fill in the cracks."
Stoner has sidestepped skyrocketing heating oil prices this winter with a wood-burning stove. The rising price of gasoline has added insult to his daily commute to Baltimore this winter.
"I'm ready to stop having to drive in icy and snowy conditions," Stoner said. "I'm ready to see the grass."
"We have seen record demands for electricity this winter," said Allen Staggers, spokesman for Allegheny Power. "Historically, we were a winter peaking utility. (Then) we had been seeing heightened demand for electricity in summer. This winter we reversed the trend again, where winter is our highest demand for electricity."
Allegheny Power customers set the record on a windy Jan. 23 when temperatures in Chambersburg were between 6 and 18 degrees. The 1.4 million customers used 8,437 megawatts -- eclipsing the previous mark set on July 22, 2002, by nearly 2%.
"Rates haven't changed," Staggers said. "If people's bills are higher, it's because they used more electricity."
That's not the case with heating oil.
The national average price for home heating oil was $1.75 per gallon a week ago, nearly triple the price of 59 cents a gallon a year ago, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Propane also has risen from 38 cents a gallon to $1.50 a gallon.
The administration in November had forecast a peak price of about $1.40 per gallon for home heating oil in a cold winter. Fears about oil supplies in the Middle East and Venezuela have raised prices further, according to analysts.
Although Chambersburg Borough customers burned more gas in the cold winter, their cost per unit is down 13% compared to a year ago, according to John Leary, superintendent of the gas department.
The borough locked in a price on the commodity markets last summer -- long before prices soared, Leary said. Market prices have doubled.
Chambersburg residents used 40% more natural gas this winter than last winter and 21% more than in an average winter, according to Leary. January demand was up 46% from a year earlier.
The average temperature for the winter of 2002-03 in Chambersburg was 28.4 degrees, compared to a winter average of 30.4 degrees, according to Jerry Ashway, Chambersburg weather observer for AccuWeather. The coldest winter was 1977-78 with an average of 24 degrees. Records have been kept in Chambersburg since 1921.
The average temperature this winter in Shippensburg was 28.42 degrees, compared to a winter average of 31.4 degrees. Again, the coldest on record was the winter of 1977-78 with an average of 24.64 degrees. Shippensburg records begin in 1932.
This was the coldest winter since 1994-95, according to Rense. The winter of 1995-96 was only slightly warmer than this year.
Last month was the snowiest February on record in Shippensburg (38.2 inches) and Chambersburg (31.7 inches).
Originally published Wednesday, March 5, 2003