Late Winter/Early Sping Outlook

Aside from the chance of a strong storm affecting New England this weekend, not too much to talk about in the short term.  Forecast models still vary on the outlook for the weekend, so stay tuned.

I wanted to address what I see happening over the next 2 months in terms of the weather pattern.

With the passing of a storm as powerful as we saw this past weekend, you tend to see a pattern change following it.  It may not be immediate, but it will set that stage for things to change.  Leading up to this storm, we've had a relatively cold winter so far.  Not steadily, but much colder than the last couple of winters.  Compared to last winter in New England, every other winter is cold!

You probably noticed the warmer temperatures at the beginning of this week.  Early indication of a pattern change.  Granted some of the added warmth comes from the sun getting higher in the sky, but it's not the only reason.  All this week temperatures will be somewhat mild.  It won't be until this weekend that they drop back closer to the freezing mark for daytime highs.

Over the past month, we've been dealing with an upper level trough across the Eastern United States.  Its been rather persistent, hence the longer stretches of cold weather.  After the passing of the blizzard, I'm starting to see a shift in the location of the trough in the mid levels of the atmosphere.  The medium range forecast models are indicating this, showing the trough shifting to the west toward the Central and Western United States.  What this means for New England is generally 2 things.  Warmer temperatures and an increased risk of storms.

I won't go into too much detail about why this result in more storms.  It has to do with the Rocky Mountains, wind direction on the east side of the mountains, and in flow of warm, moist air into the Southern Plains.  Essentially this is a Spring like pattern.  It just appears to be happening a bit earlier this year.  Maybe Punxsutawney Phil was right, early Spring this year!

The bad news is that with the snow pack, a cool ocean to our East and storms passing to our west, we run the risk of more mixed precipitation events.  This means an increased risk of freezing rain and sleet.  Whether this actually happens, time will tell, just laying out what I envision happening.  We'll also likely see a few severe weather outbreaks across the Southern Plains into the Lower Mississippi and Ohio Valleys.

Remember, if this actually happens, you heard it here first!  :-)

Thanks for reading!

-Jon K.