Despite the persistent cold and snow in February, travel in the Northeastern states was higher this year than in the same month in 2014.

The Federal Highway Administration estimates that drivers in the Northeast covered 30.17 billion miles in February. This region includes the New England states as well as New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

This distance was a 1.4 percent increase over the travel in February of 2014. In that month, drivers in the Northeast covered 29.77 billion miles.

Travel in the United States as a whole went up by 2.8 percent, or 6.1 billion miles, in the year-over-year change for the month. Travel for the month is estimated to be 221.15 billion miles, while the travel for February of 2014 was set at 215 billion miles.

The FHWA says the total is the second highest distance recorded in the monthly "Travel Trends" estimates, which are issued on a two-month lag. February also marked the 12th consecutive month of increases in the tally of vehicle miles traveled, as well as the highest percentage in the year-over-year change since 2004.

The report also includes seasonally adjusted data from the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which allows a comparison of the February mileage to any other month in any previous year. The seasonally adjusted total was set at 254.1 billion miles, or a 6.4 percent increase over the previous February.

Despite these increases, the overall travel estimate for the United States was lower than the mileage in January. The FHWA estimates that the vehicle miles traveled decreased by 3.2 billion miles, or 1.2 percent, between January and February.

The cumulative travel for the year to date was estimated to be 458.46 billion miles, a 3.9 percent increase—or 17.1 billion miles—over the cumulative travel at the same point in 2014. The rolling 12-month estimate was 3.06 trillion miles, the first time this measure has exceeded 3 trillion miles since 2008.

Connecticut was the only New England state where February travel was higher this year than in 2014. The total miles traveled in the state were estimated at 2.08 billion, a 0.6 percent increase over last year. This included a 0.8 percent increase in urban arterial traffic to 1.5 billion miles and a 0.5 percent decrease in rural arterial traffic to 128 million miles.

Rhode Island had the largest year-over-year decrease in traffic in the nation, falling 12.6 percent from 489 million miles in February of 2014 to 427 million miles in February of this year. New Jersey had the largest increase in miles in the Northeast region, increasing 4.2 percent to 5.17 billion miles.

The Northeast had the second smallest increase in February travel after the eight states of the South Gulf region. Travel in this area increased by 0.8 percent, going from 44.62 billion miles to 44.99 billion miles.

The largest increase in travel occurred in the 13 states of the Western region. The vehicle miles traveled went from 46.71 billion to 49.8 billion, a 6.6 percent increase. This marked the 17th consecutive month of increasing travel in the West.

Oregon and Montana, both in the Western region, had the largest year-over-year changes in February. In Oregon, travel increased 13.3 percent, from 2.21 billion miles in 2014 to 2.5 billion miles this year. Montana travel went from 690 million miles in 2014 to 778 million miles this year, a 12.8 percent increase.

The 12 states of the North Central region saw travel increase by 2.8 percent, going from 47.62 billion miles to 48.97 billion miles. In the South Atlantic region, which includes eight states and the District of Columbia, travel increased 1.9 percent from 46.33 billion miles to 47.21 billion miles.

Data for the Travel Trends reports is collected from about 4,000 traffic counting locations across the United States. The change in traffic by percentage is used to estimate the number of miles traveled when compared to the same month in the previous year. The FHWA says that since the sample size is limited, a more accurate estimate is provided by the annual Highway Performance Monitoring System tally.