Dance, a Timonium native, comes to The Sun from the Baltimore Business Journal. He was a regular reader of this blog and was inspired to take a weather-spotting class after Frank Roylance wrote about it.

Learn more about him in his first post and join the conversation. He's eager to hear from regular readers about what they want to see on the blog. You can also follow him on Twitter @MDweather.  

"Warmer In Baltimore Than In Miami” was the headline from The Sun on Feb. 26, 1930, after temperatures reached 83 degrees. (It was 76 degrees in Miami.) This record still holds for warmest day for the month of February. In February 1930, Baltimore was experiencing a premature spring, and the month still holds three records for warmest days: Feb. 20 it was 76, and Feb. 21 it was 74. February 1976 holds the record for warmest February in metropolitan Baltimore, according to the National Weather Service. The mean temperature for the month was 44.1.

Mild winter weather could take the sweetness out of this year's maple sugar season. Good sap production requires daytime temperatures in the 40s and nighttime temperatures in the 20s. Nothing turns off the flow like a stretch of four or five days of 60-degree weather.

"The trees think it's springtime already," said Mike Driesbach, owner of Savage River Lodge in Garrett County, which has a small maple sugar operation. Sugar maples depend on fluctuating temperatures from day to night, he said. "If it doesn't drop below 30, the trees aren't ready to start pumping that sap up."

"It's a commodity business. Produce less, prices go higher," he said. "We might have a real short season."

Oregon Ridge Nature Center will have a maple sugar weekend Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and its annual pancake breakfast on March 3 and 4 from 8 a.m. to noon. Call 410-887-1815 for details and reservations.

If the weather cooperates, Saturday and Sunday night could provide a stunning view of a crescent moon dancing in the sky with two planetary partners. The first evening, the moon will be about two degrees above and to the right of Venus. Check the sky at about 6:30 p.m. On Sunday night at about the same time, the moon will be to the right of Jupiter. Early next month, on March 5, Mars will mark its closest approach to Earth and be its brightest.

How does the National Weather Service gather local information when conditions turn nasty? In part, it turns to trained volunteer spotters to report on weather threats to meteorologists. A free Skywarn Spotter class will be held at 6:30 p.m. March 26 at Carroll Community College, 1601 Washington Road in Westminster. The basic two-hour class covers thunderstorm threats, lightning, flooding, hail and tornadoes and is a prerequisite for other Skywarn classes. Participants will be registered in the spotter program. Find details at: www.erh.noaa.gov/er/lwx/.

Last year was the fourth deadliest year for tornadoes in the United States, with 550 fatalities, and the second most destructive, with 1,709 twisters touching down. Why? A very strong jet stream powered by La Nina conditions generated powerful super-cell thunderstorms that often spin off tornadoes, says Accuweather.com. During 2011, many tornadoes touched down in densely populated areas east of "Tornado Alley" that lack the kind of storm awareness and shelters typically found in states from Texas to Kansas. Unfortunately, that La Nina pattern remains in place.

So the Baltimore area missed out on the holiday weekend snow, which hit Virginia and southern Maryland on Sunday.

Weather spotters in Saint Mary's County reported snow amounts of between 1 and 2.5 inches. But that was nothing compared to some Virginia counties: 6.5 inches in Ablemarle; 10 in Augusta; 5.5 in city of Charlottesville; and 10 in Waynesboro.

Instead of snow, the Baltimore area could get spring-like conditions this week. The National Weather Service is forecasting temperatures in the low to mid-60s Wednesday-Friday.

Satellite image of snow over Virginia courtesy of the National Weather Service

"Godspeed, John Glenn." Fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter spoke those words 50 years ago on Feb. 20, 1962, during the launch of Mercury spacecraft "Friendship 7." On board was astronaut John H. Glenn, who became the first American to orbit the Earth. He saw three sunrises and sunsets during a flight of 4 hours and 56 minutes. This spacecraft is on view at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The Mercury-Redstone 3 "Freedom 7," flown by astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, on May 5, 1961, is scheduled to leave the U.S. Naval Academy Visitors' Center the third week in March for the John F. Kennedy library in Boston.

The newest polar-orbiting satellite that will help scientists predict nasty weather days in advance is sending back its first data to Earth. The Cross-track Infrared Sounder, being managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, will produce high-resolution, three-dimensional temperature, atmospheric pressure, and moisture profiles. Scientists for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believe the enhanced information will help them decode climate changers such as El Nino and La Nina. Distribution of the new information is set to begin at the end of March.

On this date last year, NASA decommissioned its $320 million WISE satellite. With its 16-inch-in-diameter infrared-sensitive telescope, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer orbited the Earth 326 miles up and scanned the entire sky, discovering asteroids, comets, dying stars — called brown dwarfs — and distant galaxies. The 9-foot-tall satellite took more than 1.5 million images. Its final picture, taken on Feb. 1 of last year, shows a star-studded swath of the Milky Way. Next month, the WISE mission will be releasing data to the public from its all-sky survey.

Update 4:30 p.m. The National Weather Service forecast discussion: 

"SNOWFALL AMOUNT CONFIDENCE IS LOWER FOR THE WASHINGTON DC AND
BALTIMORE AREAS. GUIDANCE SHOWS THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE FOR SNOW TO
ACCUMULATE ON AREA ROADWAYS SUNDAY...BUT IT IS UNCERTAIN HOW MUCH
WILL FALL. THERE WILL BE A REAL TIGHT PRECIPITATION GRADIENT NORTH
OF THE FRONT. WE HAVE RAISED PRECIPITATION CHANCES TO CATEGORICAL
FOR THE METRO AREAS AND INDICATED PRECIPITATION WILL BE ALL SNOW.
WE WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR THIS AS THE TRACK OF THE SURFACE LOW
BECOMES MORE CLEAR. PRECIPITATION MAY START OUT AS A MIX OF RAIN
AND SNOW IN SOUTHERN MARYLAND. SNOW WILL TAPER OFF TO SCATTERED
SNOW SHOWERS SUNDAY EVENING AND PRECIPITATION WILL END SUNDAY
NIGHT. ICY ROADS WILL LIKELY IMPACT THE REGION INTO EARLY MONDAY
MORNING."

Baltimore professional meteorologist Eric the Red is also feeling the uncertainty:

UPDATE 1 p.m.: 

"All the morning models have come in, and they have definitely gone lighter and farther south... except the Canadian, which has gone a bit wetter and a hair farther north.  So, ... 'Think low, Aim lower.'  I'll pull back my forecast amounts... and hope that I'm wrong.
 
North of MD - Nothing.
Northern MD - I'm thinking 1 to 3" may be generous, but I won't pull the plug entirely north of Baltimore.  I would not be at all surprised now if nrn MD ends up with nary a flake as well.  Man I hope I'm wrong.
Baltimore to DC - Here, 3-6" is my new take, and I'm afraid this also could be high.  Again, hope I'm wrong.
South of DC - 4 to 8"

Previous quote below:

"The first real winter storm of the season is coming, but with serious, serious caveats.  ... Despite taking a very favorable track out of the Gulf to the Carolina Coast, an incredibly tight south-to-north precipitation gradient will set up.  We're talking that within the span of 20 miles or so, you could conceivably go from 6-12" of heavy wet snow to nothing.  Where this sharp gradient sets up is anybody's guess - I sure don't know - but we've got some ideas.  It appears the gradient will set up... yup, right across central Maryland, with northern portions of the state ending up on the light side, while central and southern portions of the state get smacked pretty good. ... This one is tough, and I do not envy the NWS forecasters out at Sterling, Va. on this one who have to issue a forecast for the entire region.  Storm will impact the area Sunday into Sunday night."

So, what caused Snowmageddon—the three-storm punch two years ago that blanketed the region with 54.9 inches of snow? Three scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt think they have a clue. A combination of El Nino-induced warm sea surface temperatures and storminess with a reduction in the difference between the low-pressure field to the north and the high-pressure field to the south allowed bitter Arctic wind to sweep down across the North Atlantic and turn what would normally have been rain into feet of snow.