Snowless winter? It would be a first

We're several days into the second half of February, which means the start of meteorological spring is less than two weeks away. The "official" start to spring is a little more than a month off.

And not a trace of snow has fallen this season at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, the city's official reporting station.

That puts us in historic territory -- within sight of the first winter without even a trace of snow in the Queen City, in the 134 years that records have been kept.

If you're a snow-lover and are unhappy about what's happened this winter, here's some bad news. There isn't a definitive sign of frozen precipitation in the forecast for at least the next 10 days. And the outlook in March isn't good.

First, the important caveats.

We all know that snow can fall into April -- especially since all we're talking about here is a "trace." It wouldn't take much for a trace of snow to fall, perhaps at the end of a low pressure system, as the precipitation ends and colder air pours in. Frankly, that could happen Sunday afternoon or evening, as this weekend's big storm system moves up the East Coast.

March typically is among the snowiest months in Charlotte, although anything that falls usually melts very quickly.

But we've been locked in a persistent pattern this winter, with a variety of conditions that have conspired to keep the snow away.

La Nina has been one player, directing a series of mild air masses across the South. There hasn't been a blocking high pressure system over Greenland, or a persistent low pressure system in central or eastern Canada. Either of those conditions would steer arctic air into the East.

The latest bit of evidence pointing to a mild March is the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The MJO is a moving pattern in the atmosphere, and the latest forecast is that it will be in a phase across the United States in March that tends to produce mild weather.

The Climate Prediction Center, NOAA's long-range forecasting branch, is calling for above-average temperatures through at least March 2. And the longer-range forecast is for warmer-than-average weather through the entire spring and into early summer.

National Weather Service records in Charlotte show that at least a "trace" of snow has fallen every year since records started being kept in 1878-79. The most recent "trace" winter was 2005-06, when a trace was reported in three different months.

Like I said ... not even a whiff of snow so far this winter in the region.

The warm weather probably means a nightmare of crabgrass and weeds in our lawns; flea and tick populations that explode; and all kinds of other bad things this spring and summer. More about that at a later time.