Weather

Atlantis makes some of the most feature-packed lightweight weather gear around. More protective than rain gear, the outerwear has reinforced seams and closures designed for the likes of boaters in rough seas. My favorite among a wide range of jackets is the newly redesigned Microburst jacket (in "high risk red. ") Made of a soft featherweight nylon blend, the hip-length jacket has long, spacious zippered pockets running the length of both sides of the chest, with internal netting for ventilation, as well as long "pit zips" under each arm. Elasticized cuffs have Velcro closures, and a built-in rain hood rolls and stashes behind the insulated collar.

A walk in the sun turns a bit breezy on Spring Garden Street near 2nd yesterday. This afternoon is a little milder and tonight looks clear. Weather, Page 16.

What a difference a day makes: same park, same spot. The weather Sunday afternoon was so mild that Debby and Tom Parks of Cherry Hill were horseback riding in Cooper River Park and felt "spring fever. " The night's snow brought Rick and Diane Powell to the same spot on skis yesterday.

Ann Yen Hsu is still lost in Camden's Cooper River. Rainy weather forced police to halt their search for Hsu's body at about 12:30 p.m. yesterday. They had searched unsuccessfully for about four hours before ending the grisly chore. "It was supposed to get rather nasty and tide was coming in, so for the safety of personnel, we suspended the search," said Greg Reinert, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's office. The search for the missing 30-year-old Collingswood woman was scheduled to resume this morning, Reinert said.

Offering a selection of flags and other patriotic merchandise, Millie Musha waits for customers outside Bob's Christmasland in Kensington. Yesterday was perfect weather for selling wares outside. Today could be cloudy and wet, but the warmth will hang around.

The past few days of unseasonably warm and sunny weather were perfect for paddling pn the Schuylkill, but winter's back. Tomorrow's forecast calls for light snow and/or rain and a high temperature of 48.

Abraham Lincoln High ballplayers Jerry Mason and Chris Diamond get shelter from Lincoln soccer coach Rich Patton yesterday just before rain washed out the game in the bottom of the fourth inning with Lincoln leading rival Northeast 7-5. Showers were to continue today. Weather details on Page 18.

Jamie Clark, 14, of Deptford, hugs Santa Claus at Christmas in July, sponsored by the Association for Retarded Citizens on July 25 at Camp Sun N Fun in Monroe Twp.

DAVE CONNOLLY'S stretch as Philadelphia's calmest sports person ended Monday. His phone and email accounts again were ablaze/jammed and all was finally not right in his management world. Connolly, the athletic director at Horace Furness High, in South Philly, is the Public League baseball chairman and Monday, for the first time all season, rain and/or wet grounds caused a rash of postponements. Ten, 20, 30 years from now, someone will stumble upon this story via a search engine and growl, "Hold on here.

Nobody shoveling out from under a snowdrift wants to hear it, of course. Nobody who has to bundle up against negative wind-chill factors is going to have much sympathy for the big leaguers going through their paces in ballparks ringed by palm trees. Fact is, though, that by Florida-in-March standards the spring training weather this year has been lousy. The Phillies already have had one game canceled and two others shortened by rain. Workouts have been curtailed and washed out by other downpours.

BOSTON - Boston Celtics forward-center Kevin Garnett didn't do much to endear himself to the Philadelphia fans, who are bound to give him a less-than-rousing welcome Wednesday night in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Sixers. Following the Celtics' 101-85 win on Monday at TD Garden that gave them a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series, Garnett was asked to compare the Boston and Philadelphia fans. "Not even close, not even close," Garnett said.

We sat in the half-empty stadium, so high up that I couldn't see the ball. At home, my dad would sit in his ancient vinyl La-Z-Boy and watch the game. I'd squeeze in beside him, scratching the backs of my legs on the duct-tape-covered cracks, and let the banter of Richie Ashburn and Harry Kalas calling the play-by-play lull me into daydreams. It really didn't matter what happened on the field. I simply liked sitting next to my dad. The Phillies were in last place then, but Dad stood by his team.

Fans heading to this evening's Phillies and Flyers games may face traffic delays and wet weather. The Phillies take on the New York Mets at 7:05 p.m. at Citizens Bank Park. The Flyers, struggling to stay alive in the Stanley Cup playoffs, take on the New Jersey Devils at 7:30 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Center. Jersey leads the best-of-seven series three games to one. Each team still had some tickets available this morning, through Phillies.com and ComcastTix.com . In addition, standing-room-only tickets for the Phillies-Mets game will go on sale at 4 p.m. at the First Base Gate ticket windows.

In the foreword he wrote for the catalog of his 40-year personal collection of antiques that Pook & Pook Inc. will sell May 5, dealer James Grievo says a love of weather vanes dominated his passion from the start. Indeed, there are 11 in the sale beginning at 10 a.m. at the gallery in Downingtown, with half of them expected to bring five-figure prices. But the 400 lots to be offered are otherwise so diverse as to suggest that Grievo, who lives and works with his wife, Sheryl, in Stockton, N.J., is consumed by the thrill of acquisition for its own sake.

DAVE CONNOLLY'S stretch as Philadelphia's calmest sports person ended Monday. His phone and email accounts again were ablaze/jammed and all was finally not right in his management world. Connolly, the athletic director at Horace Furness High, in South Philly, is the Public League baseball chairman and Monday, for the first time all season, rain and/or wet grounds caused a rash of postponements. Ten, 20, 30 years from now, someone will stumble upon this story via a search engine and growl, "Hold on here.

On a day when an amazingly warm spring almost outdid itself, some veteran weather observers wondered if the atmosphere was ignoring this season the way it snubbed winter - and whether the region was headed for deep trouble. "No one has seen anything like this," Scott Guiser, horticulturalist at the Pennsylvania State University Agricultural Extension in Bucks County, said Monday, when the official Philadelphia temperature reached 89 - one degree shy of the record for the date.

WOODWARD, Okla. - The television was tuned to forecasters' dire warnings of an impending storm when Greg Tomlyanobich heard a short burst from a tornado siren after midnight Sunday. Then silence. Then rumbling. The 52-year-old quickly grabbed his wife and grandson, hurrying them into the emergency cellar as debris whirled around their heads at their mobile-home park in northwest Oklahoma. They huddled inside with about 20 other people before the tornado - among dozens that swept across the nation's midsection during the weekend - roared across the ground above, ripping homes from their foundations.

Shortly before 8 on Tuesday, with the long morning sunlight coming in low over the city, Ellsworth Kelly's The Barnes Totem finally settled into its permanent home outside the new gallery of the Barnes Foundation on the Parkway. The slanting sunlight caught the bead-blasted steel surface of the 40-foot sculpture, brightening its matted gray and propelling geometric shadows onto the limestone panels of the new Barnes building nearby. Gusty wind Monday had delayed the installation a day - no one, and certainly not the 88-year-old artist, wanted an eight-ton artwork swirling uncontrollably high above 20th and Callowhill Streets.

Usually they post warnings of floods, tornados and assorted mayhem, but now government meteorologists are issuing warnings of another kind. They say that the White House's proposed cuts to the National Weather Service budget and the plans to implement them are dangerous. 'We're putting people's lives at risk," said David A. Solano, a hydrologist at the Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center in State College, which monitors flood threats in seven states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey.