Gusts to 40 mph are possible Friday in Philly. This year has been especially windy.

The answers may well be blowin’ in the wind, but for whatever reason 2025 is off to a remarkably windy start, and yet another round of potent gusts — perhaps 40 mph or better — is expected to persist through most of Friday, the first full day of spring.

Gusts already have hit 35 mph or higher on 25 days this year — including four with gusts of 50 mph or more — more than in any Jan. 1-March 20 period in at least the last 20 years, according to National Weather Service data.

The weather service held off on issuing a wind advisory, but “Either way, it’s going to be windy,” said Alex Staarmann, meteorologist in the Mount Holly office. The rain forecast for Thursday night was due to shut off well before daybreak. The winds are not.

Some scattered power outages are possible; fortunately, however, the trees are not yet leafed out, allowing winds to sail through the branches.

Extraordinarily.

The sustained winds in January, February, and so far in March — on average the windiest month of the year in Philadelphia — have been well above normal.

But the signature features have been the gusts. While weather service gust records are not kept as assiduously as those for temperature and precipitation, the available data affirm that those of you who believe it has been unusually windy have not been hallucinating.

As for those 50-mph gusts measured by the official anemometer at Philadelphia International Airport, they are unusual in any month. Only one year, 2011, in the last 20 has had as many gusts of that strength throughout an entire year.

The atmosphere has been behaving like its chaotic self, only a bit friskier than usual, said Paul Dorian, a Valley Forge-based meteorologist with the private weather service Arcfield Weather.

As they have for several weeks, systems have been moving briskly, with a procession of fronts — which form at the boundaries of warm and cold air and air of different pressures, or weights. As the atmosphere attempts to maintain a pressure balance throughout the planet, the heavier air naturally moves toward that which is lighter, generating winds.

This being the winter-spring battleground season, the contrasts are more likely to occur. That’s why this is the severe-storm season.

But Dave Dombek, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., noted that not all the potent winds around here have been storm-related. Conditions have aligned frequently to favor strong winds aloft mixing down to the surface, he said.

Friday would be another classic case, he said. The winds several thousand feet above the ground all will be blowing in the same direction. That will favor gusts at the surface. He said they could become as high as 45 mph in the Philly region, with an outside shot at 50 mph, given that strong winds “won’t be too far off the deck.”

Arcfield’s Dorian said the “chaotic” pattern is likely to continue, “with multiple cold air outbreaks combined with warm air surges.”

The spring flirtation around here — readings in Philly have reached 70 degrees twice this week, and just missed on Thursday — is due to go on pause for the next several days and take a turn toward the annoying.

Highs Friday are expected in the 50s, then back to the 60s Saturday, but cool off and may reach freezing even at the airport Sunday morning. After another brief warmup Monday, highs return to the 50s during the workweek.

Showers are possible at times Sunday night through Wednesday.

Dorian says the region and much of the nation may be in for a deferred spring. “I see a continuation of cold air masses in much of the nation well into April. In other words, lots of cold-weather, early-season baseball games.”

AccuWeather Inc. says it is even possible that Washington will see wet snowflakes on the morning of March 27, the date of the Phillies’ season opener against the host Nationals.