Nervous Nellie

"Whoa Nellie!"  I always loved that call...in the fall watching college football with Keith Jackson, not approaching the middle of March with spring on everyone's minds.  But by March 15...beware the "Ides of March", that is just what we might be yelling in these parts!

As I arrived home this glorious Wednesday afternoon, temps in the low 60s, a beautiful bloom of croci which just popped greeted me outside my front door.  With the recent rains and the slowly becoming potent March sun, these beauts made their statement about the potential weather.

I'm sorry to say that a "Crocus Crusher" just may be in store for these guys...and I'm not talking about our 4-legged kids Ziggy and Zola.  Or possibly a "Jonquil Quasher" for these radiant flowers below...forgive me, but it is difficult to utilize alliteration with "Jonquil" without my lovely language arts instructor sitting somewhere nearby...so any insights from y'all would be helpful...Russ!

OK...enough with the foofoo Smitty...what's the weather going to be like?  Well, the easy part of the upcoming week is the invasion of a solid arctic air mass commencing Friday and slowly retreating by the middle to end of next week.  Here is a pic of the 5 day means (ensembles) at 1 mile up from Saturday morning to Wednesday morning...Brrrrr!  Or as I told a colleague today...Grrrrrr!  All maps henceforth will be the Euro; however, all of the modeling is coming into solid agreement!

The first alarm will be sounded late Thursday into Friday with the cold advecting into our region just as a kink in the upper air traverses through PA along the PA turnpike.  This will usher in the arctic air from the northlands as a white carpet will be spread on the earth for the entrance of "King Kold".  Daytime maxes will struggle to reach freezing both days over the weekend!  Frankly, this will be the coldest air since mid-December! In fact, if we do have any significant snow cover on the ground for Sunday morning, we may reach our lowest temp of the entire winter! Unreal!  Here is the progged forecast for the "white carpet" by Friday...

The amounts above look reasonable, but these are 10:1 ratios.  Looking at the 850 mb temps while the snow is falling, the dendrite production may be maximized as the colder temps will allow for a higher ratio snowfall.  But 3" looks ok to me.  The next wave gets suppressed far to our south since the kold is king and steers the wimpy clipper system off to the south...here's a map for my Carolina "Querriers"...just a note, the GFS is even more bullish on a heavier swath in the same location the Euro below is indicating...just an FYI...

But for us, the real fun 'n' games will be Monday night into Tuesday!  As I've mentioned to many people the last several days, in a pattern like this with a deep and aggressive trough digging into the east, the "caboose" can sometimes be a dandy.  While I'm not suggesting a "crippling" snowfall (Yokes), I do believe that the caboose will shut down some parts of the east this upcoming Tuesday...The map below is a 24 hour total of snowfall ending Tuesday evening.

OK...I've depressed you seekers of spring enough.  So let me pick up your spirits with this ditty! We sat in New Orleans one evening at a piano bar while this one pianist simply stole the audience with his rendition of this song.  It was rather appropriate as that evening, it poured with heavy rain, thunder, wind, and even sleet reported at the Louis Armstrong airport!   Enjoy and stay tuned!

Smitty

AA:  A major change in wx pattern.  It turns to January the weekend we "spring" our clocks forward 1 hour from standard time to saving time.  Looking at a nuisance to slightly disruptive snow Friday morning to possibly a plowable and very disruptive snowfall of ~6"+ on Tuesday; possibly our most wintry 5-7 day period of the entire winter!