Incredibly, measureable snow has fallen on four consecutive days in Philadelphia, and later on this is likely to become the fifth.
Yet the grand total for the entire season at Philadelphia International Airport/National Park stands at 5.1 inches.
Most winters have their dominant characteristics, and as Gary Szatkowski at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly noted, this has been the season of the one-penny and two-penny snows.
That drive-by clipper picked up some last-minute juice from the ocean and gave towns in Cape May county their biggest snow hit of the season.
The National Weather Service spotter in Seaville weighed in with 7.5 inches; other towns in the neighborhood, and Dover, Del, ended up in the 6-inch rain
Dennisville, Seaville, and Woodbine spotters all weighed in with 6 inches, with 5.9 at Dover. Here's the latest accumulation list.
Taken together, the last two winters have a shot at joining elite company. Among back-to-back mild winters, they are on pace to become among the warmest tandems on record.
The two-season average temperatures are running at just over 40 degrees.
The all-time two winter champs are those legendary seasons of 1931-32, and 1932-33, at 41.6, and 40.1 respectively.
A drive-by Alberta Clippper is generating decent snows at the Shore, and a fairly intense snow-burst is coating the ground around Philly.
The system has been moisture-starved, but has picked up some juice at the last minute as it approaches the Atlantic.
It should all be over in an hour or so, but already 2 inches has been reported in Cape May, and Philadelphia is likely to add a few more tenths to its paltry seasonal snow total.
Thus far this season, the region has had about one week of winter, and after a wintry start to February, the mild trend could well resume.
Officially, the January temperature at Philadelphia Internationl Airport finished January at 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.
Thus, since Dec. 1, the temperature for the meteorological winter stands at a full 4.5 degrees above normal.
At 67 degrees, the 1 p.m. temperature at Philadelphia International Airport was just 3 shy of the record for the date -- and 45 degrees warmer than the high exactly one week ago.
Such temperature swings often are accompanied by trouble, and that will be the case tonight, according to the National Weather Service.
The Storm Prediction Center, in Norman, Okla., has placed the entire region in the "slight risk" category for severe weather.
After the most-vigorous cold snap in nine years, the forecast for tomorrow reads as though it wandered in from April.
Temperatures are expected to soar into the 60s, and a thunderstorm isn't out of the question during the afternoon.
A powerful cold front will cross the region, setting off strong winds and heavy rains.
Barring a prolonged polar outbreak that the computer models aren't seeing, the winter of 2012-13 will go into the Philadelphia record books as the second consecutive winter of above-normal temperatures.
By Friday, the first two months will have averaged about 4 degrees above normal, although the recent cold snap -- and this one was quite impressive -- has all but knocked this winter out of the elite category for mildness.
For five consecutive days, ending Saturday, the official temperature at Philadelphia International Airport failed to reach 30, the first such stretch since the one that ended on Jan. 28, 2004, exactly nine years ago.
On average around here, a melted inch of snow yields about 0.11 inches of liquid, or a typical snow-to-water ratio of 11:1.
The final total for the Jan. 7-8, 1996, snowstorm was 30.7 inches. The final precipitation total was 1.55, a 20:1 ratio that raised eyebrows.
It took a federal investigation to conclude finally that the 30.7 was legitimate.
This is not the best news for the late-day commute: Snow is falling already in parts of Chester and Delaware Counties.
The National Weather Service forecast of 1 to 2 inches hasn't changed -- with an isolated 3 here and there.
Ordinarily, that would be no big deal, but the timing couldn't be much worse. On Fridays, the evening peak commute tends to start a little earlier.
Tony Wood has been writing about the atmosphere for The Inquirer for 26 years. E-mail Tony here. And read all his columns here.
