School Closing and the Tract of Snow In Philadelphia

Milwaukee Public Schools were open today via a Twitter message. The MPS folks tweeted that thousands of kids packed their books and headed for the bus stop. Moreover, the Boxing Day Snowstorm's 12.4" total is one of 24 snowstorms to get at least a foot of snow in Philadelphia since accurate snowfall records were first kept in 1884. Believe it or not, this is the fourth foot plus snow event in Philadelphia in just over a year -- arguably one of the more insane snow runs this city has seen.

With this snowstorm added to our pittance of 0.3" from December 16th, the region's 2010 calendar year total is now 67.3" -- that is also a record, breaking the mark of 57.0" from 1978. When you think of gold standards, snowfall and extremes in general (heat, everything else) come to mind. Whether you blame global warming or climate change or both, or simply blame bad luck, the last 10 years have seen more foot plus snowstorms (seven) than in any 10 year period in our region's snow keeping records.

The prior "gold" standard of snow runs in Philadelphia would probably be from 1978-1983 when four foot plus events pummeled the region, three of which within a year's timeframe from February 1978-February 1979, or from 1958-1966 when we saw four such events (plus a litany of other significant events) during an eight year run when your parents would talk about growing up and walking to school uphill, both ways, in snow drifts to their armpits. Now, we just take days off from school, work, or professional sports and try to squeeze out ACME runs to be "ahead" of the storm. This December brings us the 7th snowiest December on record in Philadelphia and the third time in 13 months where we've cracked the top 10 for snowiest months, including last December's record setter and last February's platinum standard of 51.5". Whether you like the snow, loathe it, or wish to put a blowtorch to it, we can all agree that this has been an impressive run that we'll tell our kids about in decades to come...and for the kids in the crowd, enjoy it because you never know when another 1972-1973 winter (trace total) looms.