With the warmest January in 56 years, the winter of 2006 has so far meant lower bills for heating customers and smaller snow-plowing budgets for cities and towns.

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, February 2, 2006

BY TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writer

Some time this morning a renowned rodent from Pennsylvania will be ceremoniously lifted from the dark ignorance of his den and be expected to share his weather wisdom. . . . Let the furry wizard sleep.

Because that groundhog couldn't tell you anything that the gazelles at the Roger Williams Zoo don't already know.

At least they've been above ground, experiencing one of the warmest Januarys on record.

Warm enough for the gazelles to prance into their yards each morning without danger of slipping on ice or struggling through snow -- a far better arrangement than waiting in the barn for spring during years when winter lives up to its billing.

In a season when desperate ice fishermen have resorted to dropping their lines from the stern of boats and pond skaters have relinquished hope of a pickup game of hockey, meteorologist Bob Thompson at the National Weather Service in Taunton has been tallying statistics.

Last month was the warmest January in 56 years, he says. The daily average temperature of 37.2 degrees was 8.5 degrees above normal, making it the fifth warmest January since the service began keeping records in 1905 -- and only a couple tenths of a degree away from being the warmest.

Only one day (Jan. 16) did the temperature remain below freezing all day. Every other day of the month saw the temperature rise above freezing, with the warmest day of the month (Jan. 21) topping out at 59 degrees.

In terms of snowfall, 6.9 inches has fallen at T.F. Green Airport since winter began -- a mere pittance compared to the 3 feet of snow that cloaked the state by this time last year. The average snowfall for January is 10.6 inches.

So who besides outdoor enthusiasts are complaining about the weather?

Certainly not Linda Polseno, owner of Scituate Nurseries, in Scituate, who stepped off a plane Tuesday night after "23 days of 85 degree weather" in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, "and I was surprised that it was so warm."

A warm winter is a blessing for those who operate greenhouses, growing the flower seedlings and plants which customers buy come spring.

When Polseno arrived at work yesterday, her daughter-in-law told her the good news: they had used only half a tank of oil since their last fuel delivery Jan. 2 to heat the one greenhouse they keep open through winter.

"Usually we have to fill up twice a month in January," said Polseno. "That's two 250-gallon deliveries each time."

Because of a steep increase in energy costs, Polseno said she and several other area greenhouse nurseries all but closed down operation in January, expecting that the usual cold month would make it too costly to operate.

"We were going to hold off plantings as long as we could to try to conserve costs," she said.

Consequently the pansies and violas, which are usually growing in greenhouses by now, won't get planted until the middle or latter part of this month -- just when forecasts predict a return to colder weather.

Vincent Confreda, owner of Confreda Greenhouses & Farms in Cranston, is hoping the warm spell continues a bit longer until he, too, starts his delayed plantings.

"It would be a tremendous savings for us," he said. "I have 50,000 square feet of greenhouses so we could kind of use a little help after last winter."

Namvar Moghadam at the Department of Transportation, isn't complaining about the warm spell either.

The mild weather will likely translate into a savings of millions of dollars for road treatment and plowing, says the deputy administrator for highway bridge maintenance.

Last winter the state spent $16.8 million to plow and clear the roads. With half the winter about over, the state has so far spent $6 million "and I'm hoping that the second half of the season will be less than $6 million," said Moghadam.

So is the warm spell -- which may come to an end next week -- confounding nature?

Not yet say state biologists and Brian Maynard, a professor of horticulture and chairman of plant science department at the University of Rhode Island.

"Actually it's been a really good month with no problems at all," said Maynard yesterday. "The temperatures have been warm but not so warm that they are starting the plants to grow, which is the main thing." Other than some pussy willow buds which have started to swell, "the plants have stayed asleep, we've had plenty of rain and the ground has thawed out enough for roots to grow."

Maynard said it would take about a week of unseasonable temperatures in the 60s to push plants out of dormancy prompting early blossoming that could hurt the plant's growth for the year if it turned cold again.

And state biologist Charlie Brown says the warm spell is unlikely to persuade any of Punxsutawney Phil's wild relatives to head for the surface.

A woodchuck might stick his nose out on a warm day in February, Brown says, but he's smart enough to know -- whether he sees his shadow or not -- that there's still plenty of winter left before the grass is green enough to eat.

tmooney@projo.com / (401) 277-7359

EXTRA: Take a look back at last month's weather, in Journal photos, and get the latest weather forecasts and observations, at:

http://www.projo.com/news/slideshow/20060202_weather/