At this point, the prospect of a barely measurable snow Wednesday morning may seem like so much drizzle in the ocean.
However, given that a coating of snow could cover another harvest of stealth black ice in the morning as the snow melt refreezes overnight, motorists and pedestrians might want to exercise a measure of caution.
The forecasts are calling for a half-inch to maybe an inch in the Philly area.
For the record, the official total at Philadelphia International Airport was 14 inches. Of that, 7.5 inches fell on Monday, setting a record for the date. It was No. 16 on the all-time snowstorm list, and the first time in 33 years that a foot or more had fallen so late in the season.
The post-storm issues included contending with scores of downed trees throughout the region. A fallen tree in Radnor Township, Delaware County, still was affecting service on the Norristown High Speed Line.
Service still was still suspended on the Cynwyd Regional Rail line, SEPTA said, and other lines were operating with delays.
Airport operations were getting back to normal, said spokesperson Heather Redfern, flights having resumed Monday afternoon.
As for schools, they were opting for a variety of options from virtual learning (Philadelphia) to two-hour delays (Cherry Hill, Moorestown), to party’s over, get here on time (Upper Darby).
This may be the week of black ice in Philly
Invisible and insidious black ice, a dangerous slipping hazard, in all likelihood will be present through the workweek as the snow melt picks up speed during the day, with highs in the 40s, and temperatures falling below freezing at night.
More light snow, rain, or a snow-and-rain mix is possible Thursday into Thursday night, the weather service said. But odds are the immediate Philly area will see mostly rain, said Eric Hoeflich, a weather service meteorologist in Mount Holly.
After a modest warmup on a dry weekend, some computer models were hinting at more snow early next week as a storm moves east, but “not all the guidance is showing a significant system,” the weather service said in its afternoon discussion. “It’s definitely on our radar,” the agency said, but it doesn’t “appear to have potential for a ‘major’ event.”
In short, anything rivaling the Sunday-Monday storm would be, at the very least, unlikely.
Hoeflich said he spent 30 hours in the Mount Holly office, not leaving until 2 p.m. Monday. He said that the weather service provided air mattresses for him and other staffers and that his colleagues came armed with soft pretzels.
Sarah Johnson, the warning coordination meteorologist, brought pizza. Evidently carbs are a sine qua non of storm forecasting.
If it wasn’t an actual blizzard, Philly’s biggest snowfall in a decade sure acted like one, and the weather the rest of this week isn’t expected to be particularly pleasant.
But in terms of disruption — not to mention aesthetics — this was in a wholly different category from the Jan. 25 siege of snow and ice. And the aftermath should not be anywhere near as punitive and burdensome.
Although the 14 inches measured officially at Philadelphia International Airport, dwarfed the 9.3 inches of snow and sleet that accumulated in last month’s storm, Zach Schwartz, 33, was among those who found the picturesque snow more palatable than the attack of ice balls and an Arctic freeze.
“The last snowstorm was a tough time for everyone,” said Schwartz, who was at a Point Breeze playground helping a friend build an igloo for their kids, “and I think the city was kind of in shock a little bit.”
The most recent storm, which left as much as 20 inches of snow in parts of South Jersey and southeastern Bucks County, did cause some issues.
More than 130,000 households lost power at some point. Scores of trees came down as the snow, heavy and wet at the start, glommed onto branches that took beatings from the winds that gusted past 40 mph.
The storms closed schools to the chagrin of hundreds of thousands of learning-eager children, and museums on Monday. It disrupted SEPTA services and airport operations.
At least 87 trees across the city were downed as a result of the storm as of Monday afternoon, and the city was working to determine which ones to prioritize clearing first, Parks and Recreation commissioner Susan Slawson said.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker advised Philadelphians to avoid unnecessary travel as crews worked to clear the streets.
Yet early fears that the snowfall would reach what the National Weather Service called “potentially historic” levels didn’t quite materialize, and it was not known if the storm had met “blizzard” criteria. Stopping short of “historic,” New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill called it “a generational storm.”
This one likely won’t have the staying power of last month’s storm
While the volume of snow is formidable, road crews throughout the region now have a tremendous ally — the late-February sun.
The city did adjust its response after the prior storm cleanup left many residents chock-full of complaints. Director of Clean and Green Initiatives Carlton Williams said Monday instead of one snow melter, the city secured three, with two already on the road Monday, despite the much shorter notice of the storm.
But the big melter is in the sky.
The amount of solar energy beaming toward Philadelphia is more than 35% stronger than it was on Jan. 25, according to NASA’s figures, and blacktop is great absorber of sunlight. Plus the region now is getting an hour more of daylight.
Plus, instead of an Arctic freeze, it is forecast to be moderately cold this week, with highs in the low 30s Tuesday, and in the 40s Wednesday and Thursday.
A weak clipper could produce an inch or less of snow early Wednesday, but, sorry kids, that won’t be another school-closer. More light rain or snow or a mix is possible Thursday.
Computer models on Monday were seeing a potential for more snow early next week, but they may well sober up come Tuesday.
After the Jan. 25 storm, Philly had 18 consecutive days of at least 3 inches on the ground officially at the airport, the longest stretch in 65 years. That streak won’t be challenged this time around.
One other huge difference: Those 14 inches didn’t include a speck of ice, which, as we learned, is amazingly melt-resistant.
Why snow totals varied tremendously
The nor’easter that generated the snow did qualify as a “bomb cyclone,” said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. The technical criteria aside, a bomb cyclone is particularly powerful storm.
In fact, the storm’s intensity, based on a measure of its central pressure, was equal to that of a Category 1 hurricane, he added.
Fortunately, the Shore escaped major flooding, but the winds circulating around the storm’s center over the ocean hurled back snow far inland.
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South Jersey locations received the most, along with areas in southeastern Bucks County. However, totals backed off precipitously to the west.
“There was a really tight gradient,” said Amanda Lee, a weather service meteorologist in Mount Holly. All areas in Philly’s neighboring Pennsylvania counties did report at least several inches of snow.
Within that broad east-west divide, however, amounts varied considerably from place to place, due in part to “banding,” in which narrow corridors of snow, caused by rapidly rising air, migrate from place depositing rapidly accumulating snow to areas underneath.
Conversely, areas on either side of the band are snow-deprived.
By the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s decree, a blizzard requires “frequent winds of 35 mph or higher with considerable falling and/or blowing snow that frequently reduces visibility to 1/4 of a mile or less. These conditions are expected to prevail for a minimum of 3 hours.”
That’s a lot to ask for a snowstorm, and it is going to take considerable forensic work of poring through observations to determine whether those conditions were met in Philadelphia or elsewhere in the region, said Nick Guzzo, a weather service meteorologist in Mount Holly.
Another big difference between this and the January storm
Whatever else it is called, this was the most spectacularly beautiful snowfall of the season, thanks to the snow’s remarkable adhesive power.
On the morning of Jan. 26 the trees were bare, as though they wanted no part of the snow and ice-ball assault.
On Monday this time around, snow enchanted the branches and uncannily worked its way into architectural details.
Cape May Mayor Zack Mullock said his town, famous for its Victorian buildings, “looks beautiful” covered in the foot of snow that had fallen.
Said Mullock, “It looks like a snow globe.”
Staff writers Ximena Conde, Kristen A. Graham, Michelle Myers, Amy S. Rosenberg, Henry Savage, and Nick Vadala contributed to this article.
Before a single wet flake was sighted in the Philly region late Sunday afternoon, what forecasters warned would be a storm of rare severity already was having impacts on the workweek.
A blizzard warning remained in effect for Philadelphia and all of New Jersey and Delaware until 6 p.m. Monday. And while snow amounts might not qualify as “historic,” by the time it stops Monday this was expected to be the heftiest snowfall in a decade, with accumulation estimates of one to two feet.
Philadelphia hasn’t experienced a verified blizzard in 33 years, and this one would be powered by a “bomb cyclone” storm whose intensity would be similar to that of Category 1 hurricane, meteorologists said. This marked the first time ever that the entire state of New Jersey was under a blizzard warning, said Judah Cohen, a research scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
With heavy, wet snow at the onset, and gusts howling to 45 mph on the mainland during the night — up to 55 at Shore — thousands of homes in Southern and Central New Jersey were without power Sunday night. Plus, with drier snow expected later as temperatures fall below freezing, the region may see something it hasn’t in several winters: considerable drifting.
By the time the plows are done this week, the region could end up with a mini-version of the White Mountains.
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In addition to heavy snows, a nor’easter that was ripening off the Virginia coast Sunday was destined to generate potent onshore winds setting off moderate flooding along the New Jersey and Delaware coasts.
The governors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware declared states of emergency and advised against driving.
Schools announced preemptive plans for closings or virtual learning. SEPTA suspended all bus service and warned that Monday might be a mess. PATCO said it would continue on its snow schedule Monday, Amtrak suspended its Keystone Service from Harrisburg to Philadelphia, and NJ Transit announced it was suspending service as of 6 p.m. Sunday. Philadelphia opened extra warming centers that would be available through Tuesday.
About two-thirds of the 1,460 flights scheduled into and out of Philadelphia International Airport for Sunday and Monday had been canceled by 5 p.m. Sunday.
Although the forecast updates later on Sunday were trimmed back from what the weather service said might be “potentially historic” amounts, meteorologists suggested that the conditions would warrant the region’s precautions.
The weather service’s updated predictions called for 12 to 18 inches, with up to two feet in South Jersey. AccuWeather Inc. was going with 10 to 14 inches.
“That’s nothing to sneeze at,” said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.
The weather service projections might have been “a little bit high,” said Ray Martin, a lead meteorologist in the Mount Holly office, but, “We don’t want people to be under-warned, that’s for sure.”
The storm almost certainly will reach “bomb cyclone” status, said Cody Snell, meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.
“It will very easily qualify,” he said. The criteria is related to drops in the central barometric pressure. In layman’s terms, a bomb is one heck of a storm.
The storm got off to an uneventful start in the region with light rain falling into early Sunday afternoon with temperatures well above freezing.
But the changeover finally got underway late in the afternoon from south to north. Amounts of 1 to 5 inches were reported around the region by Sunday evening. Officially 1.7 inches had landed at Philadelphia International Airport, as of 7 p.m. Forecasters said snow could accumulate two inches an hour during the night.
Amounts likely will vary as a result of “banding,” narrow, moving corridors where snow falls heavily, said Nick Guzzo, a Mount Holly meteorologist. Banding already was evident early Sunday evening, he said.
And didn’t we just get rid of a bunch of this stuff?
Yes, that 9.3 inches of snow and white ice that fell on Jan. 25 is survived by some debris-strewn graying and blackening mountains, but it’s otherwise gone.
It just took about three weeks.
This one shouldn’t be as tenacious, as it won’t be infused with ice balls, and it will have a tough fight with the increasing power of the February sun.
In the short term, however, it is likely to be quite obstructive.
Accumulations are likely to vary substantially. Narrow corridors of heavier snow were likely to form during the night, and areas under the bands are going to receive the highest amounts.
This also will be a “long duration” storm with its effects continuing well into Monday afternoon. Some snow could continue through the day, the weather service says.
Some folks were determined to mine the best of the situation imposed by nature.
Bartender Bill Coburn at Les & Doreen’s Happy Tap said it was a “snowload,” in which people seek refuge from the blizzard at local bars.
“I think it comes from when you’re a kid — you have a snow day and you all go out somewhere, go sledding,” said James Brenner, 43, who lives above Atlantis: The Lost Bar in Kensington. “It’s just an adult version of that.”
In Germantown, Ashley Ellis Gitongu, 33, brought her three boys to the grocery store to buy some strawberries, a final outing before the impending storm.
With another child on the way, Gitongu was dealing with it all with a certain equanimity. “I’m not too worried, but we are going to be stuck inside for two days,” Gitongu said. And it looks like they’ll be getting some exercise.
“All the furniture is out of the way in the living room so they can play soccer inside,” she said. “We have softballs, Legos, anything to keep them active and distracted.”
Among those not traumatized by it all was Eric Dobson, 57.
“These kind of winters were common when I was a kid,” said the Germantown resident. “I guess we have become soft, so we panic.”
“I don’t know why we always get milk and bread in the storms,” said Dobson with a laugh. “I don’t even think we eat that much bread.”
This story will be updated.
Melanie Burney, Kristen A. Graham, Michelle Myers, Ariana Perez-Castells, Maggie Prosser, Brett Sholtis, and Aubrey Whelan contributed to this article.
A winter storm warning is in effect for Sunday — a blizzard warning for the Jersey Shore — and Sunday into Monday Philly’s snow has a shot at doubling the amount that fell on Jan. 25, the National Weather Service says.
“At this point, that’s certainly possible,” Zachary Cooper, meteorologist with the National Weather Service said Saturday. The official forecast is calling for just over a foot in the city, with the potential for the total reaching 18 inches.
Blizzard warnings up for the Shore, where onshore winds are forecast to howl past 35 mph, with moderate to major flooding possible.
While it wasn’t in the official language, the weather service on a Saturday morning might well have included a supermarket stampede warning.
The actual winter storm warning is in effect from 7 a.m. Sunday until 6 p.m. Monday.
Witha surprising level of agreement computer models and their interpreters Saturday were seeing the storm as being inevitable. It was forecast to affect the I-95 corridor from Washington to Boston — a rarity in recent winters.
The weather service listed a 25% chance that totals could approach two feet in the city.
“It’s going to be a long-duration event,” said Cody Snell, meteorologist with NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.
On the plus side, this will not have the staying power of the 9.3 punitive inches that accumulated on Jan. 25 and spent a three-week vacation in the region. No ice is in the forecast, and daytime temperatures above freezing and the February sun likely will erase most it by the end of the workweek.
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What time would the snow begin in Philly?
Precipitation is expected to begin Sunday morning, said Snell, possibly as a mix of snow and rain that becomes all snow.
Snow may have a hard time sticking during the day, said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., since temperatures will be near or slightly above freezing and the late-winter sun will be a factor, even it’s just a rumor in the sky.
Plus the ground won’t be especially cold after a Saturday in which the temperature may approach 50 degrees.
However, the upper air is going to be quite cold, Snell said, and when the snow is falling heavily, as it is expected to do Sunday night, “it will cool the column.”
He said areas that get caught in heavy snow “bands” would see the highest amounts.
What would be so different about this storm?
The storm is forecast to mature into a classic nor’easter, so named for the strong winds generated from the Northeast.
Nor’easters are the primary source of heavy snows along I-95, but the ones that produce heavy snow from Washington to Boston have been scarce lately.
“Over the past several years, they’ve been few and far between,” Kines.
The Jan. 25 storm was not a nor’easter per se, said Snell, but more of a case of the “overrunning” of warm air over cold air producing the snow and sleet.
John Gyakum, an atmospheric scientist at McGill University in Montreal and a winter storm specialist, said he anecdotally has seen a trend of coastal storms intensifying too far north to have much of an impact on the Philly region.
If that were the case, it could be a symptom of global warming, said Steve Decker, meteorology professor at Rutgers University. Storms form where cold and warm meet, and that may have been happening farther north lately.
In any event that evidently won’t be the case Sunday.
What could go wrong with the forecasts?
Are you new around here?
The storm consists of multiple moving parts, and as it bounds off the Southeast coast, it is due to intensify rapidly over the warm Atlantic waters.
Meteorologists advised it was still unclear precisely how intense it would become and what path it would take.
Forecast busts have been known to happen, including a famous one 25 years ago. On a Friday, the weather service warned of a storm of “historic” proportions to begin that Sunday.
What Philly got was about an inch of snow that fell over three uneventful hours.
In 2015, the head of the Mount Holly weather service office publicly apologized for a busted forecast.
However, in recent years, the region hasn’t had all that many serious snow scares.
In this case, expect details to jump around even as the precipitation is falling, but Snell said “confidence is growing” that substantial snow is going to happen.
Inquirer staff writer Stephen Stirling contributed to this article.
Whatever unfolds almost certainly won’t resemble what came down from the skies on Jan. 25 or its obstructive aftermath, but accumulating snow Sunday into Monday is looking more likely.
The National Weather Service on Friday listed a 90% chance of precipitation, with a 75% likelihood of two inches or more of snow for the immediate Philadelphia region, and about a one in three shot of at least six inches.
And add about a 100% chance of uncertainty regarding how this would play out, said Richard G. Bann, a forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center, in College Park, Md.
Computer models continued to show a wide range of outcomes from a storm that was still two days away from developing, ranging from a gentle snowfall to a school and road closer. Expect differences to persist.
In addition to snow, a potent storm with powerful onshore winds could result in coastal flooding, the weather service office in Mount Holly advised.
“I don’t think we would jump to either end of the extremes,” Bann said, “but we can’t say anything is completely out of the realm of possibility just yet.”
The storm would evolve from multiple moving parts before maturing off the Southeast coast, he added. “Part of the equation is starting to come together but we’re still not there yet.”
By Saturday, he said, “hopefully we’ll kind of know what part of the chessboard we’re working on.”
When snow might begin in the Philly region
Timing issues are among those likely to be fine-tuned in the next couple of days, but the early thinking is that snow, or rain changing to snow, would arrive in the Philly region Sunday morning or in the afternoon, continuing into Monday.
The intensity of the snow and winds would depend on the strength of the storm, precisely where over the ocean it ripens, and the eventual track.
The U.S. model has been bullish on bringing it close enough for a major snowfall along I-95. The other models, not so much, but the weather service noted that one of the balkers, the European, had come on board with at least light accumulations for the region.
“We’re definitely going to be spinning up an area of low pressure,” Bann said, “but exactly what that means for D.C., Philly — any of us — is still in question.”
But on the plus side: No ice is expected in this go-round.
So much for the remnants of Jan. 25
One of the most-stubborn snowpacks in the period of record, which has mutated into one of the uglier snowpacks in the period of record, should be pretty much erased by the time any flakes start falling Sunday.
Submerged objects have been reappearing, evoking a surfacing submarine, and bare ground is becoming ever more visible.
A decent, soaking rain on Friday — perhaps double Philly’s month total so far, a mere 0.25 inches — and temperatures in the 40s, combined with a sunny Saturday with high near 50 degrees, should pretty well clear the yards. Those plowed-snow mountains are likely to survive a while longer.
The snowpack’s tenacity had everything to do with the two to three inches of sleet — melt-resistant white ice — that fell atop the several inches of snow on Jan. 25. The entire mess was locked in by an Arctic freeze.
Bann endured similar conditions in his area, and recalled that it was way harder to move out of the way than the Mid-Atlantic mega-snows of February 2010, when 35 to 45 inches accumulated.
He said he shoveled awhile, took a break, and then was astonished to see that his neighbors were finishing his work.
Asked if he sent them any thank-you gifts, he replied: “I haven’t stopped.”
STRAITS OF FLORIDA — At 2 a.m., oceanographer Ryan Smith was headed into his 12th hour of work with little sleep when trouble started.
From the rear deck of the University of Miami’s research boat, he guided the vessel’s winch to lower a cage containing 14 long, gray tubes, collectively weighing about 1,000 pounds, hundreds of meters deep into the Atlantic Ocean, to record the temperature, salinity and density of the water. But after running smoothly for the first two-thirds of the trip, the sensors now suddenly stopped transmitting data.
There was no time for a hiccup. With urgency mounting, Smith signaled to bring the cage to the surface.
At sea, there is no helpline to call for a broken instrument at this hour (or any hour). If the team couldn’t fix it, they would need to make a 12-hour slog back to Miami through the fast-moving Florida Current — the precise subject they were trying to measure.
For 43 years, scientists have been studying the strength of the water flow between Florida and the Bahamas to learn what drives its changes over time. The information could help scientists answer a pressing question: Is the Florida Current, one of the world’s fastest ocean currents, slowing down? If so, it could indicate weakening of the larger circulation system in the Atlantic Ocean — what scientists call the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — which could be disastrous.
Even Hollywood has imagined the harm that could result from a collapse of this system of currents, which acts like a conveyor belt as it transports water, nutrients, and heat through the Atlantic.
While scientists doubt the scenario sketched out in the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow, in which the AMOC’s failure prompts a calamitous ice age across the Northern Hemisphere, researchers say rain patterns could change or fail in Southeast Asia and parts of Africa, disease may spread to new populations, and temperatures would probably drop across Western Europe. Iceland has even declared that the risk of such a collapse is a national security threat.
But climate scientists are at odds over how soon, or whether, the circulation system may weaken. Researchers largely agree that the AMOC may weaken over this century as the world warms, but they differ on whether the system is already slowing down.
Direct observations of the AMOC’s and the Florida Current’s flow, velocity, temperature and salinity could help clarify this. The Florida Current, which helps shuttle water north, is a key component in calculating the system’s strength.
Traveling between Miami and the Bahamas, a crew from the University of Miami and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration homed in on the Florida Current, the world’s longest nearly continuously observed ocean current. Over 36 sleep-deprived hours, six researchers and seven crew members traversed the ocean, dove underwater, and collected gigabytes of measurements. These expeditions gather data that generations of scientists can use to better understand the state of our oceans — and humanity’s future.
Tyler Christian, a marine scientist, takes a photo of a waterspout during a research trip to collect data on the Florida Current.
The AMOC debate
For more than four decades, scientists have almost continuously measured water flow across the Florida Current, largely with the help of a decommissioned AT&T telecommunications cable running from West Palm Beach to Grand Bahama Island.
The telephone line wasn’t intended for ocean research, but NOAA scientists noted that it picked up tiny voltages induced by seawater flowing across the Florida Straits, which changed depending on the current’s flow.Using direct measurements of the waterway from research cruises, scientists can convert the voltages into the volume of water carried each second through the strait.
In 2005, British oceanographer Harry Bryden tapped these cable measurements and the limited available ship measurements in a seminal paper that suggested a possible slowdown in the AMOC between 1957 and 2004. Using data across the Atlantic Basin today, scientists have found that the AMOC varies, daily and seasonally, yet it also appears to have experienced a slight weakening over the past two decades.
But is it on a long-term decline because of human-induced planetary warming? Debatable.
At about 4 a.m., oceanographer Denis Volkov, right, checks in on Jay Hooper, who helps the team with data management
The Florida Current is one of the main forces that make up the western boundary of the AMOC. The warm Florida waters feed into the mighty Gulf Stream, which merges with the warm North Atlantic Current headed toward Europe. As the current reaches the Arctic, air temperatures cool the water, which becomes denser. The water sinks and moves south toward the equator, where it is again warmed by the sun and returns north.
“The role of the AMOC in the climate is it carries a huge amount of heat from the equator towards the poles,” said Denis Volkov, who is a co-principal investigator of NOAA’s Western Boundary Time Series project along with Smith.
But scientists say a warming world is throwing off this balance. As Arctic ice melts, freshwater enters the North Atlantic — making the ocean water less dense, so it is less likely to sink. As a result, scientists propose thatit cannot power the ocean conveyor belt as well, so less salty, warm water is getting transported northward.
A major shift in the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation could create severe drought in some areas and damaging floods in others. Sea level could rise by a foot or more along the U.S. East Coast if it collapsed.
Scientists have typically used data that indirectly hints at the current’s movement — such as sea surface or air temperature — to reconstruct the oceans in models and track whether the overall system is weakening, but they have reached mixed conclusions.
For instance, a 2018 study plugged sea surface temperatures into computer models to show that the AMOC is weakening. Then, a paper released last January reported no evidence of weakening over the past 60 years after examining data on heat exchanges between the air and the ocean called air-sea fluxes.
The dive boat takes scientists to a site to collect data on the Florida Current.
Volkov and his colleagues are helping approach the puzzle with observations. In 2024, they reassessed the cable data from the Florida Current, adjustingfor changes from Earth’s geomagnetic field. First, they found that the current had remained stable over the past four decades. Then, they updated calculations of the AMOC in this region, which has been monitored for only 20 years or so, with the corrected data and found that the AMOC wasn’t weakening as much as previously calculated at this latitude.
“But there is a caveat that observational data is very short,” said Volkov. He said scientists would need another 20 years of AMOC observations to determine if the small decline is a robust feature and not part of natural variability.
And the AMOC can still weaken even if the Florida Current remains strong, he said, since it is the sum of currents across the basin. But long-term changes in the Florida Current can serve as an indicator of trouble for the rest of the system.
One snag, said Volkov: The serendipitous cable that provided data for more than 40 years malfunctioned in 2023 — perhaps broke. Until it’s fixed, researchers are ramping up their diving operations to recover data from underwater acoustic barometers on the ocean floor.
Volkov, left, and Smith watch as a sampling instrument drops into the water.
The expedition
When the research vessel departed from the university’s dock around 4 a.m. on Sept. 3, the sun and most of the science staff were down for the night. A few shipmates gazed at the illuminated cityscapes from the stern deck, next to the diesel engine’s deep rumble. After traversing rocking waves, the crew reached scenic Bahamian waters eight hours later.
The green F.G. Walton Smith, 96 feet long, and its crewmake this overnight trip about six times a year, traveling 93 nautical miles diagonally from Miami toward the Little Bahama Bank. From there, they go west and collect data at nine sites from the boat and dive underwater at two others.
The team’s goal is to determine the amount of water flowing north through the Florida Current per second through a series of underwater instruments, from the boat and from satellites. They also collect temperature, salinity, density and velocity data; velocity and temperature, for example, can be combined to calculate the amount of heat transported across an area.
Chomiak, left, and Zach Barton, a technician and engineer, return from diving to the seafloor to place a data-collection instrument.
At the first dive site, a remora — a long, torpedo-shaped suckerfish — circled the two scuba divers less than a mile from the boat. The slender fish is known for a unique fin on its head that suctions itself to sharks, whales, and turtles to feed off their detritus. And for a quick moment, it latched onto Leah Chomiak’s head. And her thigh.
Chomiak focused on the barometer in front of her. Her bulky gloves made it harder to use a screwdriver 50 feet below the Bahamian surface. She and her fellow diver held onto the long tubes that had been recording data every five minutes for the previous two months, since the last time divers brought the instruments to the surface and downloaded the data.
“Now we decided to service them more frequently, because, at the moment, this is the only source of data for our Florida Current transport estimates,” Volkov said. The scientists can use the pressure data to help calculate the amount of water flowing through the area.
Next, the ship arrived at the first of nine hydrographic stations andlowered a cage of sensors known as a CTD-rosette sampler (CTD stands for conductivity, temperature and depth, although it measures many more properties). Researchers can use the temperature and salt concentrations of a particular mass of water to infer where it came from and how it reaches other parts of the world.
Christian takes a quick nap in the galley as the vessel travels back to Miami.
Jay Hooper, who has been on these trips for 10 years and helps with data management, sat at the ship’scomputer station.
“Ready whenever you are,” he said into his headset.
From the top deck, the captain lowered the rosette into the water, dropping 60 meters each minute. As the instruments approached the bottom at 486 meters, Hooper said to slow down.
Lines of various colors — representing salinity, temperature, and density — squiggled down on Hooper’s computer screen as the sensors dropped. Temperature decreased and density increased as the instruments descended. Seventeen minutes later, the rosette was brought back onto the boat.
After hours of gathering data, Hooper and Smith hit a snag at the seventh station. The rosette now wasn’t sending any information to the computer. Was it human error? Did the instrument break?
The two tried different solutions as the other scientists slept. Then they replaced the sensors’ cable, andas they lowered the rosette, data filled the computer screen.
The boat stopped for the last dive near the Florida coast to retrieve the second set of underwater acoustic barometers. But the water was so cloudy, thick and green that the divers couldn’t see their hands, so they decided they would try on the next trip.
Captain John Cramer pilots the vessel back to the university.
For the next 12 hours, the boat fought against the Florida Current to take the crew home. Some aboard mustered up energy to sing “Happy Birthday” to one of the crew members.
The next morning, Smith and his colleagues processed the data to upload to NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory website. There were no notes about a cable malfunction, encounters with remoras or sleep deprivation.
The Excel spreadsheet had a single note for each station it recorded: “Profile looks good; use these data.”
You may have read this somewhere before: Computer models are seeing the potential for a significant winter storm to affect the Philly region on yet another weekend.
Those ingenious machines continue to predict that a storm will intensify off the Southeast coast Sunday into Monday. But “a large amount of uncertainty” remains about whether it will generate accumulating snow in the Philadelphia region, the National Weather Service said in its morning discussion Thursday. In the early going, areas south and east of Philly were the likeliest targets.
Based on past experience, not to mention the nonlinear chaos of the atmosphere, about the only thing certain was that they would be changing their stories multiple times in the next few days, as would their virtual peers.
In the short term, it is highly likely that, along with a certain dreariness, the region will be getting something that has been mighty scarce lately — rain. Philly’s rain total this month is under 15% of normal. Over the last 60 days throughout the region, it has been 40% to 50% below normal.
The forecast for the rest of the workweek in Philly
Our Trenton snow observer photographed these yesterday… inverse snow tracks! The snow was walked in when it was changing to sleet (ice pellets) back on January 25th, then the footprints filled up with sleet, and now the softer snow around them is melting faster than the sleet. pic.twitter.com/rLJvruzZrb
Atop the remnants, generally light winds have been aiding and abetting a rather stagnant air mass. A “code orange” air quality alert was in effect for South Jersey Thursday, and health officials advised those with respiratory conditions to limit outdoor exposure.
The primary irritants were tiny particulates, about 30 times smaller in diameter than a human hair.
Rain is likely to be in the air Thursday night into Friday, and it could be a substantial amount, on the order of a half-inch or more. So far this month, officially 0.25 inches have been measured at Philadelphia International Airport.
The moist air and the rain should erase more of the snowpack, “but we don’t want the snow and ice to melt too quickly,” said Ray Martin, a lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly. No significant flooding is expected, just some potential damage to footwear.
Temperatures are expected to top out in the 40s Thursday and Friday.
About the weekend storm potential
It may hit 50 degrees on Saturday with an appearance of the sun. So much for the easy part.
Come Sunday, “there could be some rain or snow,” said Matt Benz, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.
A storm is due to slide across the South and eventually regroup off the Atlantic coast on Sunday.
But Benz pointed out that a key feature of the potential storm still was over the Pacific and not due to make landfall until sometime later Thursday, when it would be captured by land-based observation and give the machines a clearer idea of its intentions.
And it is not at all clear how much cold air would be available for snow, Benz said, but if the storm intensifies sufficiently, “it can manufacture its own cold.” Another factor is just where off the coast the storm would be when it matured.
In case you’re wondering why the atmosphere seems to pick on Sundays, having storms show up in seven-day cycles is a common phenomenon.
They often migrate in 3½-day cycles, which has to do with the rhythms of storm movements as they travel across the country, and it so happens that the more significant one has been arriving on the seventh day.
It keeps happening until it doesn’t, and it’s still very possible that it doesn’t this time around.
Officially* one of Philadelphia’s region’s most impressive and enduring snow-cover streaks in the period of record ended peacefully at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
After 23 consecutive days of at least an inch on the ground at Philadelphia International Airport, the National Weather Service observer reported a mere “trace” at 7 a.m. Tuesday, meaning that whatever was left was hardly worth a ruler’s time.
“I can’t imagine too many people are sad about this,” said Mike Silva, meteorologist at the weather service office in Mount Holly.
The news might have evoked vast choruses of “good riddance” were it not for the fact that mass quantities of the snow and ice remain throughout the region, enough to contribute to the formation of dense fog late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, the weather service warned.
And regarding that asterisk, observations at PHL have been known to differ from actual conditions elsewhere, if not common sense.
In the meantime, heaps of aging, graying plowed snow are ubiquitous around the great Philadelphia city-state. As for melting “those big mountains, that’s going to take forever,” Silva said.
For 18 days after 9.3 inches of snow and sleet was measured at the airport, the official snowpack had been 3 inches or more, the longest such streak in 65 years.
The 23-day run of an inch or more, which began on Jan. 25 when the snow started, was the longest since 2003.
The endurance had to do with the melt-resistant icy sleet that fell atop several inches of snow and the Arctic freeze that followed. Temperatures remained significantly below normal for 17 consecutive days.
The great melt is picking up steam in the Philly region
However, the melting process is at long last accelerating. Bare ground is appearing around tree roots, and evidence of vegetative life has been poking through the snow cover.
Temperatures above freezing and the February sun have been making hay, but so has the return of invisible atmospheric moisture, even as precipitation remains far below normal.
When warm, moist air comes in contact with snow, it condenses and yields latent heat that accelerates melting. That is evident in the swelling ranks of rivulets on driveways and in the streets.
The combination of the moisture, the cold snow and ice pack, and generally calm winds will result in fog that could reduce visibilities to a quarter mile at times. The weather service issued a dense fog advisory, in effect from 10 p.m. Tuesday until 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Melting conditions should be excellent the rest of the workweek, with highs in the 40s and light rain possible Wednesday night, and likely on Friday.
Temperatures are due to remain above freezing into the weekend, but “then we’ll have to see what happens Sunday,” Silva said.
Another storm is due to develop in the Southeast, and expect another week of computer-model vacillation on whether it will produce rain, snow, or partly cloudy skies.
You may not have noticed, but that endless snowpack has developed a slow leak — in this case historically slow.
Its endurance continues to climb the charts among the snowpacks of yesteryear — and in at least one way may well be unprecedented in the period of record dating to the late 19th century.
As of 7 a.m. Friday, officially at Philadelphia International Airport, three inches of the snowy and icy remnants of what fell on the region on Jan. 25 had survived.
That made this the most-enduring snowpack of at least three inches in 65 years, said Alex Staarmann, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, the office’s climate specialist.
That earlier one, which lasted from Jan. 20 to Feb. 14, 1961, was replenished by multiple significant snowfalls, as did others at the top of the endurance list; the 2026 version was basically one-and-done after 9.3 inches were measured at the airport.
This one — and it still has its sparkle where it hasn’t mutated into frozen sludge — even has bested the snow cover attending the 44 inches that accumulated in a six-day period in February 2010, when at least four inches survived for 17 days.
The latest batch was at four inches for 18 days, good for fourth place all-time.
Not that it hasn’t had some aesthetic benefits. It can be like light therapy in the morning, and a spectacular screen for the tree shadows. It has beautifully entombed all that unfinished yard work.
Snow and ice debris is piled along the Camden waterfront in Camden, N.J., framing the Philadelphia skyline across the Delaware River, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026.
But it’s also been a royal pain throughout the region and begged the question: When it will go away?
When will bare ground emerge in the Philly region?
A farewell tour is likely next week as a snow threat for the holiday weekend remains a remote one, with accumulations only between “wet flakes” and “a dusting” possible, said Staarmann.
And you might keep an eye on Tuesday for a melt watch. Temperatures are forecast to fall below freezing Monday morning, and then stay above 32, even at night, through the workweek.
Highs are expected in the 40s Saturday through Monday, and then 50 or better the next three days.
More significantly for melting, the air will become noticeably more moist on Tuesday, and that should accelerate the melting. Your skin might even notice the difference.
Why has the snowpack been so enduring in Philly?
Since the precipitation ended on Jan. 25, the air has been remarkably dry, an underrated factor in the persistence of the ground cover, along with what happened after the snow stopped that day.
After more than seven inches of snow had fallen, it was topped with several hours of accumulating sleet.
Those miniature ice balls turned out to be a mighty additive: Ice may be way slower to accumulate, but it is also way slower to melt, giving the snowpack staying power.
“If we hadn’t had this much sleet, we might have some evidence of it, but it wouldn’t be this deep or persistent,” said Staarmann.
The Arctic freeze that followed and the consistently arid air have been the ideal preservatives.
Moist air, an efficient melter, has been absent.
When enough invisible water vapor comes in contact with snow and ice, it condenses and gives off latent heat that can liquefy the pack in a hurry.
After Philadelphia’s record 30.7-inch snowfall of Jan. 7-8, 1996, it was a moisture surge 11 days after the snow stopped that had a whole lot to do with erasing the snowpack even before the modest rains that followed, recalled David Robinson, the longtime New Jersey state climatologist.
The melt set off disruptive flooding, but even though rain is in the forecast for midweek, anything resembling a repeat is unlikely this time around.
Is that all there is for the winter of 2025-26?
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center on Friday had odds favoring above-normal temperatures through Feb. 23, followed by a possible cool down.
Regarding any potential for snow, “We still have a few weeks left of opportunities,” said Staarmann.
As long as computers are operating, snow chances will never die.
However, the February sun is getting stronger by the day and lasting longer. If it does snow again, it’s a near certainty that it won’t match this one for staying power.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday revoked a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the most aggressive move by the Republican president to roll back climate regulations.
The rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency rescinds a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The Obama-era finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.
The repeal eliminates all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks and could unleash a broader undoing of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities, experts say. Legal challenges are near certain.
President Donald Trump called the move “the single largest deregulatory action in American history, by far,” while EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the endangerment finding “the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach.”
Trump called the endangerment finding “one of the greatest scams in history,” claiming falsely that it “had no basis in fact” or law. “On the contrary, over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the world,” Trump said at a White House ceremony, although scientists across the globe agree that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are driving catastrophic heat waves and storms, droughts and sea level rise.
Environmental groups described the move as the single biggest attack in U.S. history against federal authority to address climate change. Evidence backing up the endangerment finding has only grown stronger in the 17 years since it was approved, they said.
“This action will only lead to more climate pollution, and that will lead to higher costs and real harms for American families,” said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund, adding that the consequences would be felt on Americans’ health, property values, water supply and more.
The EPA also said it will propose a two-year delay to a Biden-era rule restricting greenhouse gas emissions by cars and light trucks. And the agency will end incentives for automakers who install automatic start-stop ignition systems in their vehicles. The device is intended to reduce emissions, but Zeldin said “everyone hates” it.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman who was tapped by Trump to lead EPA last year, has criticized his predecessors in Democratic administrations, saying that in the name of tackling climate change, they were “willing to bankrupt the country.”
The endangerment finding “led to trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the American auto industry,” Zeldin said. “The Obama and Biden administrations used it to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish list of costly climate policies, electric vehicle mandates and other requirements that assaulted consumer choice and affordability.”
The endangerment finding and the regulations based on it “didn’t just regulate emissions, it regulated and targeted the American dream. And now the endangerment finding is hereby eliminated,” Zeldin said.
Supreme Court has upheld the endangerment finding
The Supreme Court ruled in a 2007 case that planet-warming greenhouse gases, caused by the burning of oil and other fossil fuels, are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
Since the high court’s decision, in a case known as Massachusetts v. EPA, courts have uniformly rejected legal challenges to the endangerment finding, including a 2023 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The endangerment finding is widely considered the legal foundation that underpins a series of regulations intended to protect against threats made increasingly severe by climate change. That includes deadly floods, extreme heat waves, catastrophic wildfires and other natural disasters in the United States and around the world.
Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator who served as White House climate adviser in the Biden administration, called the Trump administration’s actions reckless. “This EPA would rather spend its time in court working for the fossil fuel industry than protecting us from pollution and the escalating impacts of climate change,” she said.
Former President Barack Obama said on X that repeal of the endangerment finding will make Americans “less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change — all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.”
Dr. Lisa Patel, a pediatrician and executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, said Trump’s action “prioritizes the profits of big oil and gas companies and polluters over clean air and water” and children’s health.
“As a result of this repeal, I’m going to see more sick kids come into the Emergency Department having asthma attacks and more babies born prematurely,” she said in a statement. “My colleagues will see more heart attacks and cancer in their patients.”
David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Trump and Zeldin are trying to use repeal of the finding as a “kill shot’’ that would allow the administration to make nearly all climate regulations invalid. The repeal could erase current limits on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories, power plants and other sources and could hinder future administrations from imposing rules to address global warming.
The EPA action follows an executive order from Trump that directed the agency to submit a report on “the legality and continuing applicability” of the endangerment finding. Conservatives and some congressional Republicans have long sought to undo what they consider overly restrictive and economically damaging rules to limit greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Withdrawing the endangerment finding “is the most important step taken by the Trump administration so far to return to energy and economic sanity,” said Myron Ebell, a conservative activist who has questioned the science behind climate change.
Tailpipe emission limits targeted
Zeldin and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have moved to drastically scale back limits on tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks. Rules imposed under Democratic President Joe Biden were intended to encourage U.S. automakers to build and sell more electric vehicles. The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
The Trump administration announced a proposal in December to weaken vehicle mileage rules for the auto industry, loosening regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The EPA said its two-year delay to a Biden-era rule on greenhouse gas emissions by cars and light trucks will give the agency time to develop a plan that better reflects the reality of slower EV sales, while promoting consumer choice and lowering prices.
Environmental groups said the plan would keep polluting, gas-burning cars and trucks on U.S. roads for years to come, threatening the health of millions of Americans, particularly children and the elderly.
