We made it through winter!  Today is the first day spring.  Now you are probably looking at your calendar and saying to yourself… “Doesn’t spring start on March 20.”  Yes, the vernal equinox is March 20, which is when we have 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night.  We just ended what's known in our trade as "meteorological winter." That's the coldest three months of the year December, January, and February.  So say hello to "meteorological spring."  To us, the season of spring is March, April and May.  This is when we start to see the biggest change in our temperatures.  During the month of March we see our largest increase in average high and low temperatures. The average high for March 1st is 45 but climbs to 57 by the end of the month. The average low for the beginning of the month is 25, by the end of the month the average low reaches 36.

Looking back at this winter, I don’t need to tell you it wasn’t very winter-like.  The nearby National Weather Service in Pittsburgh has a large collection of weather data through the years and they experienced its 18^th warmest winter on record with an average temperature of 35.2 degrees.

     WARMEST WINTERS                   

(average Dec/Jan/Feb temp)        

   43.0    1889-90        

   40.5    1931-32        

   40.3    1879-80        

   40.0    1877-78        

   37.7    1881-82        

   37.0    1948-49        

   36.6    1875-76        

   36.4    1997-98        

   36.4    1949-50        

   36.3    1918-19  

   36.0    2001-02      

   35.9    1932-33          

   35.7    1908-09       

   35.4    1891-92       

   35.4    1890-91       

   35.3    1952-53       

   35.3    1920-21       

   35.2    2011-12       

With our winter season being very mild, you can probably guess where spring is headed.  According to the Climate Prediction Center, the next three months, are going to be above average when it comes to temperatures and precipitation.

So does this mean we are done with winter?  Not exactly, you see spring is the transition season between winter and summer, so as we all know it’s a fickle time of year.  We could see one day with temperatures in the 60’s followed by a much colder day with snow!  In fact that pretty  much looks like our weather over the next few days.  It is safe to say that sustainable, long lasting cold spells with snow on the ground for many days or weeks is unlikely.  Cold spells in spring are short lived thanks to the increasing sun angle in the sky.