The scorecard so far

Cape Girardeau seems to be blessed -- or cursed, depending on your point of view -- to avoid all of the big snowfalls that keep happening just to our north and south. Last week, it was areas to the north that got hammered. Today, places to the south saw an unexpected bonus of snow thanks to Winter Storm "Jefferson Airplane."

In Missouri, it appears New Madrid County won the snow sweepstakes, with widespread 6-8 inch totals reported. Blytheville, Arkansas, saw 4-6 inches, enough to cause power outages and brief road closings. Portions of Western Kentucky are reporting 8-10 totals.

Winter Storm "Jefferson Airplane" turned out much stronger than expected. The same might happen with the next system for Wednesday. Right now the computer models show the storm dropping to our south and weakening at the same time, leaving Cape with a dusting at most. However, that could easily change. We've seen these storms track much farther to the north than the computer models have projected.

The longer-range models are hinting that warmer weather -- maybe even (gasp!) above-normal temperatures -- will arrive for the weekend and next week. Despite what that groundhog in Pennsylvania thinks, this probably doesn't mean that spring is arriving yet. We've still got a lot of February to get through.

Now is a good time to take stock in the winter season so far. Here are the storms and the unofficial accumulations at Cape Girardeau:

AC/DC (Dec. 12): 0.4 in.

Beatles (Dec. 16): Glaze of freezing drizzle

Crosby Stills & Nash (Dec. 24): 0.5 in. or less

Def Leppard (Jan. 11): 1.0 in.

Electric Light Orchestra (Jan. 17): Squat

Fleetwood Mac (Jan. 20): 3.0 in.

Guns & Roses (Jan. 23): Dusting

Hendrix (Feb. 1): Squat

Iron Maiden (Feb. 5): 1.6 in.

Jefferson Airplane (Feb. 7): 0.5 in. or so, before it melted

Overall, it appears that Cape has seen about 7 inches total. The historical average is 12.8 inches per season. Even with the uncanny tendency for snowstorms to miss us, we should still be on pace to match the average. Almost every region surrounding us, however, will likely end the season with well above average snowfall totals.