No Foolin'! Weather Should Be Fairly Normal This Week

Despite the gloom and cool of last weekend, March 2012 was one of the warmest on record for our area. The major climate sites around town (Allentown, Reading, Philadelphia) all had their warmest (Allentown) or second warmest (the others) since records started in our region about 140 years ago.

Reality returned to the region last week with freezing overnight lows on Monday night and a generally "average" week of late March weather. That reality continues into April, although with a few subtle differences.

The good news is the coming week of weather will be mundane, with the only real chances of showers hitting the region on Tuesday night into Wednesday as another cool front drops down from Canada. The front does look pretty dry though as it moves down and any rainfall that does occur will be minor in total.

The dry trend continues, if you will, as we have had three consecutive months of below average rainfall in the Delaware Valley, with many places averaging between 50 and 70 percent of normal since the first of the year.

While not a drought, especially since soils were soggy from our epic rains of late last summer, we have been a bit dry of late.

In terms of temperatures in Lansdale, nothing too unusual for the upcoming week. The coolest days will be Monday (near 60) and Thursday (around 60), with the remainder of the week a bit warmer than that. We could have a frost to deal with on Monday night, perhaps again on Wednesday night with another push of cool from Canada.

Such is reality at the beginning of April - and temperatures for the coming week will be much more in line with that reality, with thankfully nicer weather than what we were wrought with this past weekend.

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