, Columnist
Our Two-Part Winter
Winters like this one arise from Pacific air patterns that drive cold air to the East and keep the West warm and dry.
Spring will come.
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As the snow piles up toward record heights in Boston, San Francisco is going through an extraordinary dry spell -- this was the first January in 165 years in which the city recorded no rain at all. As another snowstorm keeps schoolkids home in the Southeast, flowers are blossoming in the Pacific Northwest, where temperatures in February have been above 60 degrees.
Yet this is not as contradictory as it sounds -- just the opposite. This kind of winter doesn't happen every year (obviously), but the divergence reflects a weather syndrome long familiar to forecasters, borne of climate conditions originating over the Pacific Ocean.