Winter is dead

Stick a fork in it.

Winter 2012-13 is finished.  You might want to remember this column, in case it snows some morning in late March, but I don't see that happening.

The storm system that swept from the Midwest across West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland before going offshore earlier this week was our last chance at a real winter storm. Computer models earlier had pointed to the Carolinas as a possible target, but high pressure over the Northeast wasn't as strong as first thought. That allowed the big storm to stay north of the Charlotte region.

We certainly won't be vaulting straight into 80-degree weather. There is quite a bit of consensus among the computer models and meteorologists that temperatures overall for the next few weeks will be generally in the vicinity of seasonal averages.

Our average high temperature at this time of year is 61 degrees.

It looks as if we'll have a lot of 60s between now and the end of the month -- with a few days in the 70s and a few in the 50s mixed in.

But there is no sign of real cold weather that would allow a passing storm system to drop snow in our region.

For the record, we got 2.7 inches of snow in Charlotte, which fell Feb. 16. A trace of snow fell several other times, and we had the one January encounter with sleet and freezing rain. But we managed to avoid a devastating ice storm again. Our snowfall total was about half the seasonal average for Charlotte.

I suspect statistics will show that temperatures this winter were around average, but it seems as if we had an awful lot of chilly days, especially since mid-January.  I'll look closer at the numbers in the next few days.