It’s a good thing swimming pools around Lancaster County have just opened because the week ahead will be unseasonably warm and muggy.
And that’s not good news for area farmers, where a deficit in precipitation around the county is making it hard for newly planted crops to shoot upward.
Nor for the county’s firefighters, who continue to be called out to brush fires.
“Unofficially summer,” is what Eric Horst is calling the unusually hot spell.
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This is the time of the year when your throw your arms up and yell, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!!!” (That’s the famous quote from the 1976 movie Network about a former anchor’s ravings over the media’s quest for profits.) Hmm, I think director Sidney Lumet was on to something.
Back to weather. Yes, we do have a chance of some wet snow this evening, but this will be solely confined across the distant northern and western suburbs. The Lehigh Valley and the Poconos could pick up an inch or two in the highest elevations.
Most of the region, including the city, will see a cold rain arriving during the afternoon and continuing through the evening rush. I’m also including a few scattered thunderstorms across extreme South Jersey and Delaware.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/Bolaris_Where_the_heck_is_Spring.html#3ptEI0p3wEt6rQig.99
The 2014 edition of the Farmers’ Almanac that hit newsstands Monday offers homespun remedies, tasty recipes and a wallop of a wintry forecast that’s too bone-chilling to fathom in a week with highs in the 80s.
“We don’t use four-letter words but when it comes to this winter’s weather the word is c-o-l-d,” said managing editor Sandi Duncan. “We’re predicting two-thirds of the country will have below-average temperatures for the winter season, and in some areas the temperatures will be biting and piercing.”
If all that’s not enough incentive to head to the grocery store right now to stock up, then choose between these poisons: The Pittsburgh region is right on the predicted dividing line of a winter that’s “bitterly cold and snow filled” (north through New York and virtually all of New England) and one that’s “cold, wet and white” (through West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey).
“You guys are right on the borderline,” Ms. Duncan said. “It looks like it’s going to be a wet winter, and more white than wet in Pittsburgh.”
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In less than two weeks, March will roar in.
And, if the forecast and history are indicators of what lies ahead, this winter is likely to go down as one of the meekest of the past decade, in terms of snow.
For the winter of 2012-13, Millersville University‘s Weather Information Center had recorded just 7 inches of snow falling on Lancaster County through noon Thursday. Another 1.5 inches had fallen by Sunday evening, the result of several small storms.
Now consider this:
A warming trend is on the way, according to Accuweather.com, with high temperatures approaching 50 degrees expected by the time February turns to March.
Image via Wikipedia
The Lehigh Valley was spared the 1-2 inches of snow forecast early Thursday morning, but the 1.72 inches of rain that fell Wednesday pushed the area to an all-time annual precipitation record of 69.68 inches, breaking the record of 67.69 set in 1952.
The weather system expected to bring a few inches of snow to the Lehigh Valley by Thursday morning moved through the area too quickly before the temperatures could convert the rain to snow.
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