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It’s cold, it’s not. It’s 130 years of Philly winters | Morning Newsletter

And Temple seeks solutions and solace

    The Morning Newsletter

    Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter

Today is not going to feel like yesterday. And that’s the topic of our top story, which takes an analytical and historical look at the unpredictability of winter in Philly.

How unpredictable? After temps that reached the 60s yesterday, there’s snow in the forecast for tomorrow.

Let’s get into it. But before you do, bundle up.

— Kerith Gabriel (@sprtswtr, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

You just can’t predict a Philly winter — and we’ve got 130 years of data to back that up. While summers have been relatively consistent, the irregularity of winter months across the Mid-Atlantic region is stark.

Consider just some of the data:

  1. 😎 From summer 1991 through summer 2020, the most frequent July highs were in the 80s and lower 90s, while slightly cooler highs in the 70s and hotter ones above 95 were less common.

  2. ⛄ But January temperatures over those same 30 years spanned a much wider range, with highs ranging from 6 degrees all the way to 73 degrees.

  3. 🧥 In fact, from 1890 to 2020, temperatures have ranged from 11 degrees below freezing to as high as 79 degrees.

Our resident weather expert, Anthony R. Wood, teamed up with data reporter Aseem Shukla for this interactive and informative look at just how wild our winters have truly been.

What you should know today

  1. In spite of a record number of gun fatalities, Philly district attorney Larry Krasner asserts that Philly doesn’t suffer from a “crisis of crime.”

  2. Yesterday, 13 city cops were sidelined after questions arose regarding their arrests in gun-related crimes.

  3. City Council President Darrell L. Clarke wants lawmakers to have more decision-making powers when it comes to development.

  4. Michael Smerconish, the former Philly radio talk show host and former Inquirer columnist, will take over for the fired Chris Cuomo at CNN.

  5. Sunoco Pipeline was ordered to dredge and pay $4 million in restitution for the 2020 polluting of a lake in Downingtown.

  6. Alain Vigneault’s time has ended as Flyers head coach. But our columnist Mike Sielski opines that he was the least of their worries.

  7. Judith Giesburg, a history professor at Villanova University, opines that the least we can do for Philly’s version of Rosa Parks is rename Taney Street after her.

  8. The White House discovered that Donald Trump had COVID-19 while he was on Air Force One, as told through a new tell-all book from former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

  9. Local Coronavirus Numbers: Here’s your daily look at the latest COVID-19 data.

The fear and concern following the off-campus shooting deaths of a young teen and a student have Temple students, faculty, parents, and neighbors calling for safety.

A candlelight vigil on campus remembering the life of law school hopeful Sam Collington followed a community meeting in which people demanded answers. And though Temple has vowed to ramp up its police patrols on and around campus, Erica Atwood, a city official, cautions that the community can’t “arrest our way out of this problem.”

“Until we as a country commit ourselves to get to the bottom line, particularly in poor communities of color, and we start to build strategies and policies and practices and programs that undo some of the historical racism and systemic racism that we see in our neighborhoods, we’re going to, unfortunately, go through these ebbs and flows.”

Reporters Ellie Rushing and Susan Snyder attended both and set the scene of a campus seeking solutions and solace.

🧠 Philly Trivia Time 🧠

Even if you’ve lived in the Philly region your entire life, you probably haven’t been to all of the area museums. Today’s question: Do you know what year Philly opened the doors to its first museum? The answer, in addition to 22 suggestions of where to go on your next museum trip, is highlighted in our latest guide.

Photo of the day

I’ll be back to get your day started bright and early tomorrow, Philly. Enjoy today. ✌️