February 2011 ended up rather mild in the Delaware Valley, averaging out to 2.4 degrees above average -- essentially in a tale of "two Februaries" as temperatures started off quite chilly at the beginning of the month before spiking above average for the better part of the last 2/3rds of the month of February. February's average monthly temperature of 37.2 is the warmest since 2002 -- no surprise given that there were five days of 60 degree or warmer weather in February in Philadelphia, enough mild weather to help provide an easing of a long, solid stretch of cold that lasted for the better part of nine weeks. The switch from cold to warm was rather sudden as we started out February 11th with a low of 16 degrees and ended up at 62 on Valentine's Day -- a 46 degree swing in just over 72 hours. Conversely, we went from 69 degrees on February 18th to snow three days later, followed by severe weather and winds three days after that.
Precipitation totaled out to 2.65" -- just 0.09" below where we need to be for the month, with a final monthly tally in the snow department of 6.1" coming in close to the "old" average of 6.6" (1971-2000) but below the new average of 8.5" (1981-2010).
I'll provide a full recap of meteorological winter 2010-2011 tomorrow.
