A Week of Typical February Weather Ahead

Many places here in the burbs over the past week picked up between two and four inches of snow with the two pittances of snow that tracked through the region. Neither system was tremendous in impact although the second had a bit more bite in its wake as we are dealing with cold weather to start this week.   However, this cold shot is not locked in nor is it loaded up to last a long amount of time. After Monday, temperatures will return to normalcy over the duration of the week. That means high temperatures in the 40', low temperatures a few degrees on either side of the freezing mark.

The "normal" for this time of the year is a high in the lower-40s, low in the upper-20s. So, this week's weather is rather "normal" in the sense of what the middle of February is classified to be.

Of course, we know how fickle February can be. Four years ago we flirted with near 70-degree warmth; five years ago we had inches of sleet and snow falling through the region in one of the worst sleet storms our region had to deal with. Thankfully, none of those extremes are on the way. However, two rounds of precipitation are expected in the coming week.

The first will trek through on Valentine's Night - a weak system that will bring a round of scattered rain and/or snow showers. As of the time of this writing, it's tough to say whether those showers will be liquid or frozen as temperatures will be close to the freezing mark both at the surface and up aloft. If frozen, some coating accumulations can't be ruled out in a few spots.  

The second system will arrive on Thursday with mostly rain for our region. The low pressure center with system number two has a bit more pop to it and a bit more moisture, so more widespread precipitation is expected. It won't be a nasty storm but some half-inch rains are possible with it.

This system might start as snow on the very front end in the suburbs but milder air will work in at the surface and aloft, changing any snow over to rain pretty quickly. Of course, stay tuned, just in case the trend is to go colder with this system and we get a bit more frozen and a bit less rain from it.

The weekend starts off pretty tranquil with seasonable temperatures, with the possibility of another storm system arriving on President's Day. Although there is little model agreement on track and timing with that storm.

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Tom Thunstrom is the editor and publisher of Phillyweather.net. You can follow the site on twitter@phillywx.