Weather Rewind, January 30-February 5, 2011

Last week was icy, slippery, but not terribly cold around Philadelphia.   Temperatures averaged just a degree below average thanks to temperatures bouncing into the 40's on our icy days on Wednesday and Saturday.   Those 40's were the first time in a couple of weeks that we finally broke the 40 degree barrier in Philadelphia, with the last time we had seen that mark back on January 19th (the day after an icy rain event in the city).  

Rainfall for the week totaled 0.96" with a tenth of an inch of snow on Tuesday morning in the front end "thump" that fizzled.   Nationally, temperatures were coldest in the center of the country, with the brunt of the last Arctic blast going into Texas, New Mexico, and the Plains -- El Paso set an all-time record cold high temperature last Thursday (15 degrees), with an ice event down in Brownsville, TX on Friday (there are cool pictures of ice daggers that formed on palm trees on that link).   While we were getting nailed with icy rain, the brunt of Old Man Winter went west...and we ended up fighting the transition from the dead of winter to the creep of warmth in the form of two slip and slide events.