The Great Melt: How long will snow last?
Coming soon to a yard near you, bare ground?
By now we're guessing that you can't quite remember the look of bare ground.
For those to the north and west, or living on hills and/or north-facing properties, get used to the white. And the lifespan of a plow pile is roughly the square root of infinity.
But for lots of folks living in the lowlands along the Delaware River, by as early as this time next week chances are good that you won't have to work from memory.
The official snow depths at the Philadelphia measuring station have been dropping steadily, down to 9 inches at 7 a.m., from the 22.4 inches that landed there during the weekend.
The melting will continue nicely for the next few days, although probably at a slower pace as the pack compacts.
But we expect an acceleration Sunday through Tuesday as February will get off to a mild start with temperatures pushing well into the 40s. By Wednesday morning we would not be surprised if the official depth is down to 0.
Melting rates obviously differ by location, and are driven by weather conditions day to day, but based on official records kept at the airport station, the mega-snowfalls generally had spectacular but short careers.
Even in February 2010, when back-to-back storms heaped 44 inches of snow on the region in just five days, officially the entire snowpack was erased in two weeks.
After the blizzard of Feb. 11-12,1983, heaped a then record 21.3 inches on Philadelphia, officially it was gone within a week.
The longest-lasting snow cover we would find in the records was all the way back in 1961, when the airport ground stayed white for close to a month, from Jan. 19 to Feb. 17.
That winter, 13 inches fell on Jan. 19-20, a bitter cold snap followed, along with over 10 inches in early February.
But that was the exception.
The most-spectacular episode of snow-melt occurred on Jan. 17, 1996, within 10 days of what is still a record 30.7-inch snowfall in Philadelphia.
As climatologist Nolan Doesken, our go-to person on melting, pointed out, that was all about the unusually moist air, rather than the modest rains that followed after the snow disappeared.
The air that day was full of water vapor, and when it came in contact with the snowpack, it condensed, giving off latent heat that acted like blowtorch on the snow.
Nothing like that is expected in at least the next several days, and by the time most of the snow is gone, it likely will turn cold again.
No snow is in the forecast, but we remind readers that we entering what on average is the peak season.