It’s been an eventful winter, but where is Spring?
We have high
pressure building into the region, providing February sunshine. Today is cold
but a bit warmer than yesterday. Temperatures back off tonight leading to a
cold start tomorrow morning. But then we will see a warming trend, later
Saturday into Sunday a disturbance will pass to our north, this will bring light
snow showers to northern parts of the region, especially in the higher terrain.
and a chance for mix/rain a bit south of that, then a few rain showers over the
southern tier of New York State into southern New England the rest of the
region should stay dry.
Next week
will see a few clipper-like systems roll through. The first will come through
later Monday into Tuesday this will bring a rain/mix snow to the region.
Wednesday will be an in-between day and should be mostly dry. Then another
system will approach and move through on Thursday into Friday, again bringing
rain/mix/snow.
The pattern
is going to start that uphill climb toward real spring. But it will be a slow
climb.
The
transition from winter to spring can be very energetic and erratic. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been talking about
the overall pattern, and how the polar vortex and various other teleconnections
will allow for injections of polar and arctic air into the North American
pattern. with the colder overall weather pattern looking to reign over Great Lakes
into the eastern United States as we go into mid and maybe late March. The
polar vortex has been very active and fickle this winter. As I’ve been saying
the PV is currently stretched with one lobe impacting Siberia and a lobe over
Canada. This disruption is partly due to a high-pressure anomaly in the
stratosphere over Europe heading toward Greenland, we also have a high-pressure
ridge over the West Coast into Canada.
The PV is
starting to relax and pull back north. So, we will see warmer temperatures over
the region this weekend into next week. By Monday and Tuesday, the temperatures
over the Northeast and Middle-Atlantic will be above average, as the northwest
flow shuts off, and we get into more of a zonal (west to east) flow, allowing
for warmer air to work in. The PV is
going to strengthen. Which will help keep that cold air locked up over the North
Pole. But as I’ve been saying the warm
pattern isn’t going to hang on for a prolonged time. As we approach the end of February, high
pressure is going to build in over the North Pole; this is going to disrupt the
PV once again, allowing for colder air to slip back into the middle latitude. The
setup looks to see the PV stretch over Asia and North America. Marking a return
of a cold air mass over the Great Lakes, Northeast and Middle Atlantic. So, the end of February and first week of
March is looking to be rather cold. Then we should see a warm up.
We’re going to experience big temperature swings during March. There is still plenty of cold air available in the pattern. So, we can still expect to see some snowfall. In the extended range forecast. The upcoming weather pattern will see a lot of back and forth. With the colder air coming from the north, you can see snowfall across the Great Lakes, and across the Mid-Atlantic and New England.
Here is a look at the GFS’s thoughts on the next 16 days. It’s hard to have any real accuracy with snowfall, but we can see there will be some snow.
