Didn't miss it a bit

Anthony R. Wood and Edward Colimore have an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about our conspicuous lack of winter:

For John Davis, it was a dream winter: over by Halloween.
That would have been just after a freak 29 October storm of heavy, wet snow collapsed tree limbs, ripped down power lines, and set Davis and his public-works colleagues throughout the region to worrying that here we go again.
But after back-to-back brutal winters, neither Davis nor his peers or the best minds of meteorology imagined that that storm would be the worst of the "winter" of 2011-12. "Ordinarily you spend the winter plowing or getting ready for plowing," said Davis, borough manager in Doylestown, where tight streets and well-used sidewalks make snow removal an adventure. This winter he has been able to spend time savoring cold-cash savings, as have highway departments on both sides of the Delaware.
Heading into March, they have a Dead Sea-worth of salt stuffed into their overflowing storage domes. "Our salt bin is full," said Dan Lutz, public works chief in Upper Darby.
At a time when government entities are trying to squeeze the last measures of copper from every penny, nature's surprising generosity is more than welcome, around here and in much of the nation, Valdez, Alaska, notwithstanding.
The meteorological winter that ended officially Wednesday was the fourth-warmest in Philadelphia in 138 years of record-keeping, with an average temperature of 40.7. The season's four inches of snow placed it in a tie for Number Four on the least-snowy list.
The upshot?
Doylestown has spent just $2,300.47 on salt since 1 January, Davis said. Last year it spent seven times that much. It did not have to part with a penny for equipment rentals, compared with $28,000 during the record snowy winter of two years ago.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has used just $6.2 million, one-fifth of its $31.8 million snow-and-ice-fighting budget.
Its New Jersey counterpart has spent $14.6 million, compared with $56 million last winter. Camden County has used only $87,000 of the $400,000 it set aside.
Philadelphia's $1.5 million snow-fighting expenditures are a tenth of last season's $15 million.
After depositing close to ten feet of snow on the region over the two previous winters, why did nature suddenly let up? It wasn't because the world suddenly got warmer. January was the chilliest January worldwide since 2008, according to the National Climate Data Center.
The difference locally has been a persistent Arctic air-pressure pattern that has blocked cold air from plunging south into the United States east of the Rockies, said Paul Knight, a meteorology professor at Pennsylvania State University and the state climatologist. Philadelphia, and much of North America, spent the winter on "the lone warm island in the hemisphere," he said.
Other neighborhoods of the Northern Hemisphere have paid the price. Last month it snowed in Rome. And has it snowed in Valdez, Alaska; the 26 inches that fell Sunday and Monday brought the seasonal total to 403.9 feet at the Valdez airport. That's a hundred times the total at Philadelphia International Airport.
For parts of Chester and Bucks Counties, the Halloween weekend snow by far exceeded any snowfalls during the winter.
Still, area road crews have not been on spring break. "They do other roadway maintenance activities such as filling potholes, fixing guide rails, painting over graffiti, clearing brush, and picking up litter," said Joe Dee, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
And don't expect a tax refund; all money is spoken for. PennDot is putting any winter surplus toward road resurfacing and bridge repairs, spokesman Eugene Blaum said.
"We can use the savings for other things," said Camden County Freeholder Ian Leonard, adding that the money would be recirculated into the general fund.
"It allows us to get other things done," said Doylestown's Davis. It will be easier for the borough to make sign repairs, spruce up parks, and tend to storm drains, he added.
Some of Upper Darby's surplus will have to go toward offsetting skyrocketing fuel costs, Lutz said. The mild winter has depressed demand and, thus, prices for natural gas, said Terence Fitzpatrick, president of the Energy Association of Pennsylvania, but refined-gasoline prices have gone in the other direction.
But Lutz is not alone in his gratitude for a low-cost snow-fighting winter. Said Davis: "A year like this is certainly welcome."

Rico says a year without snow is like a year without a shitstorm...