Cold: A February for the record books
Cold in last half of month unprecedented in era of official observations.
The world weather community keeps track of weather records by calendar day and monthly increments, imposing an order about which nature is utterly indifferent.
February is particularly troublesome in that scheme, given that every four years it has an extra day, which is more likely to be warmer than the other 28 days of the month, for an obvious reason.
By the end of February the sun will have gained more power than in any other month between solstices, even though it happens to be the shortest one.
So what we're witnessing this February qualifies as historic, almost like watching a gas-stove flame fail to heat a pot of water.
Despite that increasing solar power, the last two weeks of this month will constitute the coldest second half of February in records dating to 1874 in Philadelphia.
Assuming the forecasts for the next few days come close, the average temperatures for the two-week period would be around 21.5 degrees, or 16 degrees below the normal.
That would easily surpass the same period of 1934 – a legendary February that saw the lowest temperature ever recorded in Philadelphia – which had an average of 23.6.
That nipped 1885 by a nose. Right behind that was 1963, 24.0, then 1978, 26.1.
One other eye-popping statistic: Temperatures for the second half of the month will end up about 9 degrees lower than those for the first two weeks. That would represent the most-dramatic February cool-down since 1903.