Anthony R. Wood has an
article in
The Philadelphia Inquirer about the weather:
It was darn cold on Wednesday morning, but not quite a record.
The official reading of twenty-one degrees at Philadelphia International Airport at 5:54 amwas one degree above the record low for 19 November, set in 1936. And the high for the day is predicted to be just above freezing: 34 degress.
For those worried that this week's potentially record-setting cold signals the premature onset of a ferocious winter, be advised that a temperature record of a different type could fall Monday. The high that day could reach seventy degrees (no, that's not a misprint) said AccuWeather meteorologist Carl Erickson, and that would be one degree shy of the highest reading for a 24 November in Philadelphia.
Although the atmosphere isn't quite winter-ripened, the dense snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere has contributed to the intensity of the cold in the mid-Atlantic, said Erickson. Snow has a refrigerating effect on air masses.
Philadelphia and Montgomery County have continued their "code blue" emergencies, in which officials are watching out for the homeless and shelters are activated. "Code blue" alerts are common around here, but not the week before Thanksgiving.
Evidently, many car batteries in the region did not enjoy Tuesday's overnight chill.
"We're definitely seeing a spike" in trouble calls, said Jana Tidwell, a spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic.
November cold snaps, however, typically have the shelf life of a late-March snowfall; rarely have they lasted more than two days. This one will be no exception. On Thursday, temperatures will be back in the forties and, after a reinforcing cold shot Friday, temperatures will begin to moderate, and then April arrives on Monday.
Rico says he suspects that the 'April arrives on Monday' line was a bad joke...
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