Varied Weather this Week

Winter 2012 is shaping up to be one of the mildest on record for the region. For Philadelphia, it's probably going to end up as the fourth or fifth warmest on record as meteorological winter comes to an end on Wednesday.  For us weather folk out there, spring starts on March 1 as meteorologists like to keep weather data organized on a monthly basis and March, April and May make up the three months of meteorological spring.

The coming week will promise varied weather ... from a mild start today to a rainy and raw Wednesday, followed by a nice Friday and then more rain on Saturday. Monday may end up as the mildest day of the week as temperatures flirt with 60 near Philadelphia and in the mid or upper 50s in many of the suburbs.

 A cool front crosses later Monday night, with cool sunshine settling in on Tuesday. While still nice, Tuesday will be close to ten degrees cooler as a cold high-pressure center over Canada oozes some Canadian chill southward into the U.S.

February will end on a rainy note, with the potential for some snowy and ice up to our north over the Poconos on Wednesday as a storm system moves in from the west.  If it weren't for that Canadian high-pressure center, we'd be talking about a warm and rainy setup with temperatures running towards 60. However, the chilled high is going to act as a roadblock and prevent a storm system over the Great Lakes from pushing warmth northward.  Instead, this storm system will be shoved east through our part of the world, eventually transferring its energy to a low-pressure center developing in the Atlantic.

The day with the most temperature and weather uncertainty is Thursday.  We currently have Thursday pegged for the middle 40s but temperatures may be milder and into the upper 50s, but there might be a period of light snow as coler air drains because of the Canadian high and the developing costal low.

 After this mess of a storm system departs on Thursday night, Friday looks to be a nice, typical early March day. Another storm system arrives on Saturday afternoon with more rain.  This time, the storm track will be far enough to the west where we all see rain and milder temperatures.  We should get back into the 50s on Saturday afternoon but at the expense of getting more rain.

--

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