If you are feeling tired, cranky or low this time of year, you are not alone.

Many in the Northern Hemisphere have had enough of winter by the time February rolls around. The lack of sunlight seems to bond people in universal consensus that February is the dreariest of months. It’s normal for your internal mood to match the weather outside.

“I thought it was just me, but apparently a lot of us feel near to flickering out this month,” St. Louis radio reporter Kevin Killeen recently posted on social media.

Killeen’s 2016 video report about surviving February recently went viral. Millions of people have viewed a two-minute clip during which he roamed the streets of St. Louis and captured the sentiment of a gloomy day.

“This looks like a place where people who are being punished are sent,” he says in the clip.

He ruminates about foggy skies, bleakness and bare trees.

“February is the worst month of the year,” he tells viewers. “But it’s an honest month. It’s a month that doesn’t hold up life any better than it really is.”

Sometimes, even eternal optimists must concede defeat.

“Look around here,” the reporter says. “These buildings, they look like they don’t even have any lights in them during a work day. Something great happened here, but it’s over with and that’s the way February is.”

His deadpan delivery perfectly matches the bleakness of a cold, damp weekday. At one point, he discovers an umbrella discarded in a trash can.

“Somebody on this February day has abandoned it, with its broken shaft, like a desperate flinging off of something that’s not true anymore,” he tells the camera. “The expedition is getting desperate. People are throwing things aside.”

I was among the many who were unaware of Killeen’s time

less bit until recently, when it popped up in a social media news feed. I instantly related to the feeling that many of us are running on fumes this time of year.

The piece felt particularly poignant this year. The winter of 2021-2022 seems especially long.

“It seems like here is a time in our lives when we’re sick of politics, we’re sick of the pandemic and along comes this little feature where the enemy is the month of February and everybody’s like, ‘Yeah, I hate February, too,’ ” Killeen told colleagues during a recent interview on KMOX-AM 1120.

As his 2016 piece went viral on social media, traditional media outlets picked up the story. Killeen talked with The Daily Beast, The Boston Globe, The New York Times and NBC’s “Today” show, he said.

The clip reminded me of a scene in the 1993 Bill Murray film, “Groundhog Day.” Killeen’s report was like the part in the movie where weather forecaster Phil Connors first realizes he’s trapped in a time loop. He’s depressed and angry about it.

“I’ll give you a winter prediction,” Connors sneers at his TV news co-workers covering an event with him in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. “It’s going to be cold, it’s going to be gray and it’s going to last you the rest of your life.”

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it’s completely normal to feel this way, especially this year.

“You miss sunlight,” Killeen said during the recent KMOX radio interview. “After the holidays, you get to the middle of February, the tank is really low. You need spring.”

Many do whatever it takes to get through the worst of these days, even if it means abandoning New Year’s dieting and fitness resolutions just to experience moments of guilty pleasure.

“Carbohydrates are big this time of year,” Killeen says in his report. “Also lotions because everybody is itchy and tired and irritable.”

In his classic 2016 piece, Killeen talked about how people created holidays to lift their spirits this time of year.

“To try to hide the bleakness of February, man invented Valentine’s Day, and also Mardi Gras,” Killeen reports. “But then February answered back with another holiday, Ash Wednesday. What other month could host a holiday that’s designed to remind us that we’re all going to die?”

The answer is November, which kicks off with Nov. 1 observances of a holiday known variously as All Saint’s Day, All Soul’s Day and Day of the Dead.

People in November, however, have a full tank of good will and cheer from summer and autumn. Many look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays with family.

February, on the other hand, is near the end of a long tunnel. You can start to see light, as the days are getting longer. But you’ve still got to get through the next few weeks, and they may be among the toughest of the year.

I speak from experience. I nearly died from a heart attack Feb. 17, 2014. My heart stopped for six minutes. A major artery was 100% blocked. I barely survived February that year. I’ve tried to make the most of every moment since.

That’s why I appreciated Killeen’s report. Evidently, a lot of other people feel the same way.

“My father used to have a saying that if you can live through February, you’ll live another year,” Killeen concluded in his report.

Amen to that.

Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.

tslowik@tribpub.com