Siblings Katie Elson, 7, A.J., 5, and Chrissie, 9, enjoy playing on the ice at the flooded parking area that becomes a skating rink on Legion Way in Barrington. On 14 days last month, the high temperature didn’t go above freezing.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

The senses sense — and statistics confirm — that it has been a far colder and snowier winter than usual, but ask Rhode Islanders their opinions of the weather we’re having and the answers are about as mixed as the precipitation during last week’s snow, sleet and rain storm.

On Wednesday, while waiting for a bus at Providence’s Kennedy Plaza, Irene Weh said, “Look at these!” The 41-year-old Providence woman pointed at the soaking wet bottoms of her jeans, and exclaimed, “It’s terrible! It’s slushy.”

Lincoln Finance Director John F. Ward looked over the figures for his town’s snow-removal budget — nearly three-quarters of the $175,000 spent even before Wednesday’s storm — and said, “We don’t have too much room for too many other storms.”

But Anne Elson of Barrington has been pleasantly reminded of her days growing up in Maine, and she welcomes the chance to treat her three kids to the same childhood fun.

“In Rhode Island, it’s kind of sad. The snow always turns to rain here,” she said.

But not this year. On Tuesday, Elson picked her children up at school, made them finish their homework in the car and then let them put on their skates and head out on the ice at Legion Way in Barrington, where the town floods a parking area when it’s cold enough.

And boy, has it been cold enough.

The temperature in January usually averages 28.7 degrees in Rhode Island, according to information collected at T.F. Green Airport and provided to the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. But this January it’s been about 5 degrees below average (but still higher than the record average of 19.6 degrees, set in January 1970). The temperature has been in the single digits on six days, dropping as low as 1 degree last Sunday. On 14 days, the high temperature didn’t go above freezing.

That’s why many local ponds have been frozen solid for weeks now. For nearly the entire month of January, a group of teens from Riverside has been playing hockey at Legion Way every afternoon — and into the evening beneath a light.

“Once it was flooded it was all set,” said 16-year-old Cody Boulais as his friends cleared the ice with shovels early last week. Sure, “It’s cold,” he said, “but if it’s not cold, you can’t play.”

Then there’s the snow. If Eskimos have lots of words for snow (which is apparently a myth), Rhode Islanders, especially public works directors, probably have a few choice words of their own for the stuff.

In December, 20.6 inches fell on Little Rhody, smothering the old record for the month of 14.4 inches, set in 2007. Normal snowfall for December is 6.5 inches.

And 14.9 inches fell last month, also up substantially from the normal 10.6 inches for the month.

All in all, Rhode Island typically gets about 3 feet of snow a season. But already this year, children have been blessed — and school superintendents cursed — with just half an inch less than that amount. School districts have had to make quite a few tough calls about whether to close schools, and classes have been canceled several times in some communities.

Blame — or thank — the wintry weather on an atmospheric rollercoaster, says William Babcock, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

In a typical winter, he said, weather systems pretty much chug right across the country west to east, like a transcontinental railroad. But for much of this winter, the tracks have been making dramatic turns north and south. So air flows north up to Alaska, drops down into the Great Plains and the South and then turns northward to New England again.

“It goes up and down like a rollercoaster,” Babcock said. “We’ve just been in a pattern that allows that cold air to pour down from Canada and stays even as disturbances go by.”

The snow pattern is also unusual, he said. Typically, New England gets hit by potent storms that collect moisture in the South and then churn up the East Coast, in classic northeaster fashion. This year, the storms have been traveling across the country from Alberta and the northern Plains and arriving just south of New England, drawing extra moisture from the ocean.

“And it’s been cold enough that it falls as snow,” Babcock said. “We’ve been getting one after another of those and because of that we’ve gotten a large accumulation. We’re halfway through the winter and we’ve had just about our normal fill.”

Now, like a roof straining beneath the weight of a blanket of heavy snow, municipal budgets for snow removal are near collapse, or have already collapsed. The costs include overtime pay for drivers and materials such as salt and sand.

Cranston’s $400,000 snow-removal budget is already exhausted and so is most of a $250,000 emergency budget for snow removal, said administration director Robin Muksian-Schutt. Johnston has about $50,000 left in its $200,000 budget, but still has bills to pay. In Cumberland, the $140,000 budget was overspent nearly 20 percent, and that was before Wednesday’s storm.

The timing of the storms and the cost of salt have exacerbated snow-removal costs this year, according to local officials.

Many of the storms have occurred overnight, on weekends and during holidays, said North Kingstown Town Manager Michael Embury. That drives up overtime costs, which hit $65,000 in his town even before last week’s storm.

Meanwhile, the cost of salt has skyrocketed, reportedly because of high demand. The price that South Kingstown pays for salt has climbed from $40.50 per ton in 2007 to $49.75 last year to $87.75 this year, said Town Manager Stephen Alfred. More than two-thirds of the $205,000 that the town has spent on snow removal (about $35,000 over budget) has gone for sand and salt.

“South Kingstown is 64 square miles, so that’s a lot of sand and salt,” Alfred said.

Many towns had sand and salt left over from the mild winter last year, but they are now having to order more supplies at the higher prices. Narragansett has depleted its budget of $65,000 for sand and salt and will soon have to order more.

City and town officials say they’ll be scouring for other places in their budgets to make up the shortfall.

“We will run … in a deficit situation, and then have to make a budget adjustment towards the end of the fiscal year to balance them out,” said Narragansett Town Manager Jeffrey Ceasrine.

This cold, snowy winter begs the question: What happened to global warming?

Nothing, scientists say. The planet continues to heat up, despite these few weeks when it seems Mother Nature has brought us back to storied winters of yore.

“There’s a difference between climate and weather and you can’t mix the two up,” said Stephen P. Hamburg, a climate expert who took leave from his Brown University professorship to be the chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Weather unfolds day by day. Climate incorporates long-term trends.

And the long-term direction, Hamburg and other scientists agree, is unquestionably temperature rising.

“When you look at the trends,” Hamburg said, “they’re absolutely dead-on consistent with all the modeling predictions of climate change.”

Adds Dork Sahagian, director of Environmental Initiative and professor of earth and environmental sciences at Lehigh University:

“All people really notice is the here and the now. Global warming as a global phenomenon is going on unabated regardless of what’s happening in Providence this winter. Don’t look at Providence. Look at the globe.”

— With staff reports.