"Winter" update; weekend recap
Seasonal snow total reaches 4 whole inches, and that might be it for February.
Once again, the weekend snow fell at a glacial pace, and the official Philadelphia total for the 33-hour "storm" was just 0.9 inches.
By our perverse math, that comes to under .03 inches an hour. Granted, based on the official observations, it was snowing only 21 of those hours; that would bump the rate to a hefty .04 inches per hour.
Since the snow coincided with the 29th anniversary of the Feb. 11-12, 1983 blizzard -- and that was a real, live blizzard -- we mention that during that storm snow was falling at the rate of an inch every 20 minutes at times.
The jackpot for the the weekend event evidently landed in the Radnor section of Wayne, where 3.7 inches was measured in the two-part storm.
Generally, 2- to 2.5-inch reports were common in Burlington, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and New Castle Counties. Here are the final totals.
But the snowfall was interrupted by a precipitation-free period in the afternoon, during which we saw the snow-erasing power of the late-winter sun.
While the cloud cover kept the afternoon temperatures in the 30s, the sun behind those clouds was working overtime to melt what had fallen.
February is a month of huge radiation gains in the North Temperate zone, and by the time February ends, it will have added about 25 percent to its wattage over Philadelphia.
That's a big reason why snow has trouble sticking to blacktop and paved surfaces during daytime.
By the time the snow picked up again late Saturday, it many formerly snow-covered places it had to start all over.
The official 0.9 at Philadelphia International Airport/National Park, N.J., pushed the seasonal total to an even 4 inches.
That puts this winter in a dead heat with 2001-02, both tied for the distinction of being the fourth most-snowless winters in the 125 years of record-keeping.
Ahead of them are three hall of famers -- 1949-50, 1.9; 1997-98, 0.8, and 1972-73, trace.
The long-term outlooks suggest that the rest of the month should be uneventful. Some flake-sightings are possible this weekend, but it's looking too warm for significant snow.
Meanwhile, the Commodities Weather Group is saying the warmth in the East looks to lap into March.