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Snow totals a portrait of a mad month on both sides of the river

Official March snowfalls are among the highest on record for not only for Philly but for neighboring stations and New Jersey. They are significantly higher to the north and west of the city.

Snow has been piling up this month, especially to the north and west of the city. This was a heap of snow in Wayne on Thursday.
Snow has been piling up this month, especially to the north and west of the city. This was a heap of snow in Wayne on Thursday.Read moreStaff photograph

With a jolt from a mad March, snow totals in parts of the region now exceed seasonal averages in the likes of Boston and Hartford, Conn., according to numbers posted Friday by the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.

More than half of the official 29.8 inches measured this season at Philadelphia International Airport has fallen in March – 15.2.

That's tied for the second-most in the 135 Marches in the period of record.

And the snow has been generous in the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, thanks to a stalled upper-air pattern over the North Atlantic Ocean that has helped spawn a sequence of coastal storms.

Averaged statewide, 16.6 inches of snow has landed on the Garden State this month, according to state climatologist David Robinson, making this No. 4 among all Marches.

The weather service reports that Wilmington has had its second-snowiest March, at 14.2 inches, and the totals for Atlantic City, 9.6, and Allentown, 20.7, are in the top five.

But areas in an arc from just west of Philadelphia to Allentown have been creamed, said Joe Miketta, the acting chief meteorologist at Mount Holly.

Elevations might have been factors, but evidently that corridor has found itself frequently under bands of heavy snow, he said. "That's been all winter long," he said.

Observations posted on the phillywx.com chat board, where measurements are taken quite seriously and often are posted by meteorologists and trained observers, support Miketta's comment.

The observer in Wayne has measured 30.7 inches so far in March — better than 50 for the season. Other March reports include 22.5 in Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County; 22.3, in Graterford, Montgomery County; 18.8 in Phoenixville.

No new snow is in the near-term or extended outlooks — almost none, anyway. The forecast does call for a chance of a snow shower on Sunday.

But the string of days with below-normal temperatures – 19 as of Friday — is due to end next week, when temperatures could make a run at 60.

Pay no attention to the government's two-week outlook.