If we can believe the forecast, by Thursday morning the temperature at Philadelphia International Airport will drop below freezing for the first time this season.
Based on recent trends, Nov. 8 is not particularly late for an official first freeze in Philadelphia, as we noted in today’s “Weather or Not” column.
Today, we looked at the decline in days on which the temperature fails to get below freezing, even in the dead of winter.
Last spring we took note of a corollary trend, the period between the first freezing readings from the warm season to the cool season. Based on our analysis, that period had grown by 27 days in the last 30 years.
We often think of Halloween as being the milepost for that first freeze, but the temperature has failed to hit freezing in October since 1992.
As for the last freeze, it had moved up from April to late March. The worldwide temperature has increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit during the last 100 years, accelerating in the last 30. What’s happening locally appears to be part of that trend.
We caution again, however, that something similar happened in the 1930s.
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