The definition of how much snow makes a big snowstorm around here is certainly arbitrary, but let's say for sake of argument that it's 10 inches. With that definition, there have been 22 such big snowstorms over the last century in this area, an average of one every 4 or 5 years.

Now here's a question: During which month - December, January, February or March - do you think the greatest number of these big storms hits? The answer is, perhaps surprisingly, the month we're in now, February. Of those 22 storms, 10 occurred in February, 6 in January, 3 in December, and 2 in March. Of the 10 in Feburary, 5 occurred from the 10th to the 20th. So you could say that today, we're smack dab in the middle of the time of year when, at least historically, we're most likely to get a big snowstorm.

Once we get into mid-March, the risk goes down considerably, though there's even been one 19-inch snowstorm in early April.