March begins with sunny week, showery weekend

Temperatures are then expected to turn colder next week, with below-average highs.

In the meantime, February has ended. Finally. For a short month, it seemed like it would never end. Temperatures averaged 3 degrees above the 30-year norm, moderating what had been an especially cold winter during December and January. It was also dry, with just 2.69 inches of precipitation. That's .33 inch below the average, continuing the dry period that began in October. Dry weather is a trait of La Nina winters in the Southeast, and we seem to have caught the northeast corner of that.

Wind made more news in February than snow. We had just 2.5 inches of snow at BWI. But the winds on Saturday, Feb. 19, averaged 55 mph, with a peak gust to 60 mph. The National Weather Service forecasters in Sterling said that was the windiest day at Baltimore in at least the last 10 years. They had not checked further back than that.

One other thing... Do you have any questions about the weather or backyard stargazing? As part of our new, expanded print weather page, we are now posting weather comments seven days a week, up from four. That's a lot of space to fill. Send me your questions and see your name in old-fashioned ink!

(SUN PHOTO: Barbara Haddock Taylor, Mar. 9, 2010)