The March weather roller coaster continues to roll on. One day it's nice and the next it's raining, a general theme of our weather over the last few weekend. If you take this week as an example we saw rain on Monday followed up by a gorgeous Tuesday then another day of rain today (March 25, 2020). The pattern continues to remain the same with a warm and sunny Thursday before additional rain chances Friday into Saturday. The reason for the ups and downs is a wiggle in the jet-stream.
As we get deeper into Spring the northern half of the jet-stream starts to push back into Canada suppressing the cold from much of the United States. Teleconnections such as the NAO and MJO also suggest this. Over the last few months the NAO has been positive to neutral which has limited any chance of snow around these parts and instead replacing it with early Spring-time air. The NAO though is trying to head back negative which means more of a wavy jet-stream pattern with consistent ups and downs similar to what we are seeing this week. It also keeps the overall weather pattern relatively active with intermittent rounds of rain and storms.
Speaking of rain our next shot comes in late Thursday into Friday and then again late Friday into Saturday. Both of these rounds rain could add up to an additional 0.5-1"+ for the week. It will not be raining all the time with the worst of the rain coming early Saturday morning.
A warm front will lay draped across the area before a cold front follows Sunday. Before that front gets here highs will go from the low 50s Saturday into the low to mid 70s Sunday. Things level out by early next week sunny skies and highs around 60. More rain follows though by Wednesday and Thursday with another storm system rolling into the area.
The ups and downs continue despite long range 8-14 day trends suggesting normal to slightly above normal temperatures and below average precipitation. Stay tuned as we are along for the ride into April. Who knows maybe we can squeak out some "Fool's Snow."
