Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Few quick answers to some questions left in the feedback on yesterday's blog.

Betty Anne -- my pictures are from Copper Mountain, CO

Jisles -- I was due on leap year, but came on the 27th

It looks like March may start to roar like a lion as we head into the middle of the month. Below are the 6-10 day and the 8-14 day temperature outlooks for the nation.





You can pretty much bet if this much cold air spills across the country, given as warm as it has been in portions of the plains and Texas, and with a projected warm up in the southeast, that there will be some very active weather to go along with this cool down.

The climate prediction center is predicting the potential for some moderate to heavy snow in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan late this weekend into early next week.

It does look unsettled and wet for that region, but temperatures will be the key as to how much snow really falls.

They could stay in the middle 30s and see a rain/snow mix.

This is a tricky time of the year to forecast because the sun angle is rising, overall things are warming up, and storm systems tend to be a little more dramatic...meaning the distance between warm and severe storms versus cold and snow can be relatively small.

Or sometimes an area in the middle, such as locations in Missouri, may see both from the same storm system.

Here in the Front Range of the Rockies, we often see some of the heaviest snows of the season as these dramatic storms spin up over southern Colorado before heading east.

It's a fun month -- but conditions and forecasts are likely to bounce all around -- sometimes flip-flopping from day to day.

So definitely stay tuned and keep a close eye on the forecast, esp. if you have to travel anytime in March.

We see the same type of weather as we head into April during a typical year, but the word winter storm will begin to wain during late April and May, and the focus of active weather will shift more toward thunderstorms and tornadoes.

Winter storms are still possible into the month of May, but nothing like we have seen over past weeks and could see during the rest of March and early April.

3 comments:

  1. I am excited for the active weather pattern. Chris, are you in the mood for a hefty CO snowstorm at this point?

    We'll be away in STL this weekend and as these systems start up we are anticipating a dicey drive back to Oshkosh on Sunday. The GFS says that it'll be liquid though, but like you said the chances are high that these systems will flip/flop... we'll be keeping an eye on it!

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  2. Enjoy your trip to STL! I hope your visit will bring us some snow this March!

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  3. Nice Blog, and wow you can still have snowstorms in late April, Were don't with snow normally but the starting of April here in West Central Wisconsin! I know you can get heavy snows in that area.

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