Finally got my favorite teacher out of the cabin and back to work today. Schools had a delayed opening, but that didn't stop her being there at the regular hour. Now if the kids will just settle down...

Welcome sunshine today should help melt the remaining glaze off steps and walks. But the daytime high won't impress at 35 degrees. The barometer finally turned upward yesterday afternoon, marking the passage of another cold front, which halted the rising temperatures as they passed 40 degrees or so. The overnight low here at The Sun was 28 degrees.

As the cold, high pressure air mass moves off the coast late today, we'll watch for the next cold front moving our way from the Upper Midwest. That could bring snow showers to the mountains, with only a slight chance we'll see some here. Expect clearing skies and a colder night Friday into Saturday, with a low of 19 or so.

The weekend looks mostly sunny, with temperatures warming by Sunday and Monday into the 40s.

From there, forecasters expect a strong coastal storm to develop, and as it moves northward up the coast it will draw warmer, wetter air into the region. That should mean rain for our area to start. But counter-clockwise circulation around the low will eventually drag colder air down from the north as the storm moves along.

Forecast models differ on whether that will mean more rain or a change to snow for us Monday afternoon. One computer sees snow spreading eastward across the area Monday night. The other  calls for rain.

Here's AccuWeather.com's assessment. And here is AccuWeather.com's blogger Henry Margusity, with his customary hype.

Sterling's discussion says that in either case, "by Tuesday, cold air invades, and any wraparound precipitation should be snow." How much? They can't say yet. But the track record for this season so far is none too impressive.

Snow totals at BWI for this most recent storm came to 1.9 inches. For the season: 2.7 inches. Clearly some of us have seen more. And the western counties have had plenty. And this week's ice storm caused plenty of consternation, even at the White House. But if we're going to break out of the snow-starved pattern of the past two years, it's probably going to have to happen in February.

Remember that five of the 10 biggest snowstorms in Baltimore have occurred between Feb. 11 and 18.

Here's an interesting pattern: Among the top-20 storms, we see them in 1993, 1996, 2000, 2003 and 2006. That's every three or four years for the past 16 years. Aren't we due?