Boston breaks snowfall record

Sunday’s snowstorm in Boston pushed the city over the edge for the season, setting a new all-time record for winter snowfall.

Boston’s snow total was 108.6 inches for the winter as of 7 p.m. Sunday night, when the snow stopped, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

{mosads}That’s exactly an inch above the previous record, set in the winter of 1995-1996. The NWS’s records go back to 1872.

“It was a little bit more than we were initially expecting,” Matt Doody, a meteorologist with the NWS, told the Boston Herald. “Some fairly heavy snow.”

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh (D) joked about the accomplishment on Twitter.

“Superbowls, World Series’, Stanley Cups, and snowfall records. We are truly a title city. There will be no parade,” he wrote.

While individual storms and even seasons are difficult to attribute to climate change, some scientists say a warming globe is likely a contributor to extreme winters like the one Boston is experiencing.

“The environment in which all storms form is now different than it was just 30 or 40 years ago because of global warming,” Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told USA Today.

Trenberth said increasing temperatures make it easier for the atmosphere to hold moisture, which will lead to more snow, as long as the temperature remains below freezing.