That's right. I couldn't believe it either. I just had email from Steve Zubrick, the science officer for the National Weather Service office in Sterling. He's down near Richmond and reported a temperature of 59 degrees.

Huh?! It's 34 here at The Sun, and it's been hovering near freezing most of the day. And it's 25 degrees warmer in Richmond? But I checked and it's true. Actually, at last check it was 64 degrees!! Thirty degrees warmer than Fredericksburg, just 53 miles away!

It's also 62 degrees this afternoon at Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. And 51 at OC.

The warm air mass that has been pulled north off the ocean into the mid-Atlantic states by this big low has pushed hard into south-central Virginia. But it hasn't succeeded yet in displacing the cold, dense air in place at the surface just to the north of Richmond, or across most of Maryland. The snow and ice cover is helping to keep things cool at the surface. It's also cooling the warmer, wetter air aloft and condensing the moisture into fog.

Here are some current temperature readings along a line from Baltimore south:

Baltimore: 32 degrees

Washington National:  32 degrees

Fredericksburg, VA:  34 degrees 

Richmond, VA: 64 degrees

Williamston, N.C.:  72 degrees