Smitty's attempt to educate and to a much lesser extent, entertain, about all facets of life; but primarily the meteorological and the climatological aspects of the earth sciences.
As most of you are fully aware, the month of March in these parts can be a real spring fling heartbreaker. I'm becoming more and more concerned that this upcoming month might create some real heartache for those wanting spring. There is little doubt that the recent weather has been spectacular; the modeling suggests this continues for the remainder of the month!
However, by the middle of the month of March, March madness might be occurring here in terms of the weather...the cold is well advertised on both the Euro and the American longer term models. Here is the CFS for days 20-30. Cold starts to overwhelm the continent with a bit of a battle here in the east. That is of some concern as temperature battles at this time of year tend to create a stormy weather pattern.
There is another atmospheric trigger known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) that usually dictates how the upper air pattern evolves. It has teleconnected admirably this winter with the "Pineapple Connection" rain events along the west coast of the USA. The downstream effects here in the eastern CONUS usually take 2-3 weeks to become manifest. Take a look at where the MJO has been and forecast to be for the next several weeks. Note the warm phases of 6 and 7 were occurring at the beginning of February and note how our weather is currently. Now the MJO is progged to go into Phases 1-2 and then become null (inner circle). Take a look...
And the Euro ensembles think that winter is not necessarily finished with us here in the east...although the control still tends to keep the storm track off to our west up through the Great Lakes keeping us on the warmer side of the storms. But enough ensemble members create enough uncertainty to make some of us mad in March!
So Smitty...what are you saying? I'm hoping you enjoyed these last few days and the few yet to follow because a turn to colder and potentially stormier looks to be in the cards here in the east. Keep your one wx eye on California; if things begin to calm down there...and I believe it will...then things could get late winter ugly here in the east for a 2-3 week period. But until then, we have several gems for February yet...so enjoy!
And enjoy this Jackson Browne classic...for we might need to "...let the music keep our spirits high..." if March roars in like a lion!
Smitty
AA: A mild to warm remainder of February but becoming concerned that March just "may" turn late winter ugly. By the end of March, the pattern should flip back and the brief cold snap will be a distant memory! This winter may go down as our least snowy, but one good March storm could nulify that too.
