Philly has its biggest snowfall in a season of micro-snows. Next up: Atmospheric muck, but a sunny parade day.
This has been the season of the micro-snow.
To understand why a modest — and aesthetically gorgeous — snowfall generated such a hubbub in the Philly region — complete with school closings, late openings, and virtual instruction — consider what hadn’t been happening so far this winter around here.
This has been the season of the micro-snow. Thus, the 3.1 inches reported from Philadelphia International Airport was a skyscraper in a rowhouse neighborhood. It convincingly became the biggest snow of a peculiar season.
But if snow suits your wintry taste, savor it now: Nature is about to unleash some powerful snow-removal equipment with a snow-erasing rain and warmup.
“If you want to go out and look at the snow, today is the day,” Amanda Lee, meteorologist with the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly, said Wednesday.
A fairly significant rain, which may start as snow and/or sleet, especially north and west of Philly, was a near-certainty Wednesday night into Thursday, when the temperature will make a run at 50 degrees.
Fortunately, the official precipitation probability is an absolute goose egg on Friday, the day the city will host the parade and celebration of the Eagles’ Super Bowl triumph in New Orleans.
About the snow in Philly
Speaking of the Big Easy, with that 3.1 inches at PHL, the city matched the Super Bowl city’s seasonal total of 8.0 inches. But down there it all happened on one historic day last month.
For Philly, this was the eighth of what the weather service calls snow “events,” and only the third with more than half an inch of frozen stuff.
This time, forecasters all but promised, come Wednesday morning the snow would be ruler-worthy.
And it was.
» READ MORE: How much snow fell near you? Philly-area totals, mapped.
While the behavior of the atmosphere can be as unpredictable as that of certain celebrating Eagles fans, this time it behaved or more less as forecast with about 3 inches across the city, a general 2.5 to 3.5 in the neighboring Pennsylvania counties, and 4-plus reports common across the Delaware River. Amounts in the vicinity of 8 inches were measured at the Shore and in southern Delaware.
When will it snow again in Philly?
Evidently, not soon.
Depending on your perspective, the region has had a run of good fortune. Snow chances have been like wayward field-goal attempts in football, said Dave Dombek, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.: “Wide left, wide right.”
“You’re kind of left in between,” he said.
The heaviest snow Tuesday night and early Wednesday fell to the south of Philly, and areas well to the north were due to get their turns Wednesday night and Thursday. Winter-weather advisories were up from central Pennsylvania to Maine.
More rain is due here Saturday, and once again the snow will head north of here. Sunday’s Philly forecast: Rain.
It’s not all bad: The entire region remains in “severe drought,” according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, save for areas near the Shore, which are in “extreme drought.” Precipitation throughout the region has been about 75% of normal in the last three months, according to the weather service’s Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center.
And the city is going to get a timely relatively decent day.
Friday, Super Bowl parade day, is looking like the only purely dry day for the rest of the week.
It should be sunny on Friday for the parade, with temperatures reaching the mid- to upper 30s, although a brisk wind will drive wind chills into the 20s.
It will turn cold again early next week, but it may be a while before Philly actually passes New Orleans.