Your eyes don’t fool you. Less than two weeks before the opening day to the 2013 Major League Baseball season, wet snow is forecast to fall across South Jersey on Monday, March 18.

Spring arrives on Wednesday. So when is the weather finally going to warm up?

Weather we’d expect in the depths of winter would normally seem out of place in a just about every other year.

But this year is so different. It hasn’t been seriously snowy, but we’ve remained cold enough for the threat of snow to linger much longer than normal.

Even during the 2009-2011 snowmageddon seasons, Mother Nature shut off her snow-making machine February.

But no one seems able to find the off button to cold and the chance of snow this year.

The daily high temperature failed to climb out of the 30s for 13 of February’s 28 days.

The daily high temperature should find a home in the 50s during March. Yet only five times this month has the temperature rose past the 40s.

So here we are watching waves of white flakes floating gently all around us.

Why?

A persistent pattern of colder-than-normal weather has settled into the eastern United   States for most of March. It’s not going to warm up any time soon, forecaster’s suggest.

While the western United States region should experience record-breaking warmth, those people living east of the Mississippi River will endure a prolonged cold spell.

The NationalWeatherServiceClimatePredictionCenter says that South Jersey residents will have a 50-70 percent chance of colder-than-normal temperatures through the end of the month.

So keep those sweaters and gloves handy.

Today’s outlook

In the meantime, look for today’s morning snow to change over to rain, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures will climb to nearly 42 degrees and the rain will become heavy at times. Expect up to an inch of rain before it all ends Tuesday morning when South Jersey temperatures should reach 50 degrees.

Expect a chance of sprinkles on Wednesday and Thursday’s high in South Jersey to struggle to get to 40.

Weather fun place: Snow   Hill, Md.

You’d expect wintery conditions in a place named for arctic-like conditions. But the 2,100 residents of Snow Hill, Md., will enjoy a high of 49 degrees today with heavy rain.

The town was formed in 1686 and named after a street in London.