Cold-hearted prospect

Temperatures now are forecast to drop below zero north and west of the city early Sunday, and Philadelphia, itself, still has a shot at breaking its 22-year zero drought.

The digits are likely to move a degree or two in either direction, but the lastest National Weather Service forecast sees a low of 2 above early Sunday.

Wind-chills will be around 15 below, and, perhaps ironically, the stinging winds could be the biggest obstacle to reaching the magic number at the official measuring station at Philadelphia International Airport.

As we've mentioned, that's a tough environment for a zero reading, being not far from runways, terminal buildings, a river, and a swamp.

Add to those challenges stiff winds that keep any residual daytime heat, such as it is, from radiating into space, and hitting zero would be an accomplishment. But it's certainly not out of the question.

In the period of record dating  to 1875, the official Philadelphia reading has hit nothingness 45 times, or about once every three years.

But it hasn't happened since Jan. 19, 1994, when it hit 5 below zero.

Just about everything anomalous these days gets linked to global warming, but we'll eschew that path in this case.

This drought still has a ways to go to catch up with the one between between Jan. 23, 1936 (-2), and Feb. 2, 1961 (-4).

The others notables:

Feb. 5, 1918 (-2) to Feb. 8, 1934 (-2)

Jan.  29, 1963 (-5) to Jan. 16, 1977

Jan. 21, 1985 (-6) to Jan. 19, 1994

Zero or no, suffice to say it will be frigid Sunday morning, and won't get much better in the afternoon.