Bring Spring

This horrendous winter is officially over.  Of course I use the adjective to describe how bad it was if you love cold and snow.  Now we are hitting the 70's like it is late May and flowers are beginning to sprout from the unfrozen soils.  This roller coaster weather that had most of the nation riding high really messes with the body and nature.  When nighttime lows dip below freezing next week killing blooming buds, I'm sure it will piss somebody else off.

No matter what you can't please everybody.  And mother nature is no exception.  Warm winter?  Angry ski resorts.  Happy local governments.  Early Spring?  Tornado season begins even earlier.  Nobody enjoys that unless you are a tornado chaser for which I guess you would since that is how you base your income.  Regardless, I will move on from this winter with no regrets.  I chalk up the warmer than average temperatures and less than average snowfall to nothing more than weather being weather.  This is what happens.  It has been this way for thousands and millions of years.  And next year can only bring the unknown.  We have far too much of this year to go to look towards next winter.

If I had told you before winter began that our biggest snowfall of the season would be in October, temperatures would consistently be well above normal from November through March and Philadelphia would receive less than five inches of snow after having two seasons of record breaking snow, would you believe it?  Let the global warming climate changers sound the trumpets.  But I digress.

How about if I told you there would be a snowstorm in April?  This year.  Hold that thought.


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I really don't think this is even necessary after this winter.  But let's go back and look at the predictions made by the local forecasters who used all their high tech computer models, pattern changes, past history and years of knowledge, schooling and studying to realize they have in reality no clue.

Remember, Philadelphia will end as of now with 4 inches of snow.  Not even going to go into temps that were predicted.  Every month was well above normal and nobody could have predicted that.

CBS:  21-28
FOX:  24-30
ABC:  22-28
NBC:  30-40
ACCU:  27

Lehigh Valley Weather:  Less than 22


We have a winner.  I will accept my gifts at a later date at the Weather Forecasting Convention in late April.

I'd like to call to the carpet Hurricane Schwartz, which by the way, will end up being a horrible nickname should there one day be a devastating hurricane with that name, for his call of 30-40 inches.  Instead I will let him off with a pass since he took a bold stand, going the furthest away from average.  The real loser of this winter's forecast goes to John Bolaris, who never even got to witness the end of it.

I look forward to the challenge again.  Or perhaps we could guess on how much rainfall will fall this summer.  I'm up for another forecast-off.  If we all recall, last season was extremely wet.  Like 30 inches of rain in two months wet.  I'm smelling a new blog post coming.

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