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Welcome to March!

Welcome to the first day of meteorological spring, the actual spring equinox begins on March 20th.  We had 40.5 inches of snow during met winter which was about an inch more than last year but we can still have more snow from March into April.

Yesterday we had 53° for our high temp and 52° on Saturday. Today will be much colder than those nice weekend temps.  It will breezy today with scattered snow showers. Some snow showers may be heavy enough to briefly lower visibilities significantly enough to cause driving issues. Accumulations will be limited through, mostly less than a half-inch. Temperatures may hold in the lower 30s this morning but should fall into the 20s this afternoon. Wind chills will be in the teens this afternoon.


Long-range models are hinting towards warmer and wetter conditions next week through mid-month.  This would put us back in the 50s for daytime highs.


Forecast Discussion

-Some snow showers today turning colder -

We will likely see a short period of snow shower over our western
and souther CWA. There is decent shortwave, currently over MN,
that will drop southeast and cross our CWA just south of I-96
around noon. This is on the arctic front once it comes through we
will be on the cyclonic side of the polar jet till early tonight.

Moisture with the shortwave is fairly deep, over 15,000 ft but it
is a quick moving system. It looks to me like the area south of a
line from Grand Haven to Lansing has the best chance of seeing
anything that could cause brief accumulations of a half inch or
less of snow as it move through. It will be breezy too, so we
could see some blowing snow in that band of snow showers as it
moves through. It is these quick hitting snow showers that seem to
cause the most traffic accidents so we will have to see just how
strong these showers as they move through.

The western sections of our CWA will likely see some flurries or
light snow shower from late morning into mid evening. It is that
time that we are in the deep cold air and as a result the DGZ will
be in the clouds. However those clouds will be very shallow, less
the 5000 ft in so not much accumulations should be expected.

The 1000/925 mb thickness tool suggest temperature will not rise
much today. Actually we may see a quick rise just head of the
arctic front but once that moves through expect falling
temperatures through the afternoon.

-Quick warm up Tuesday continued into Wednesday -

A strongly developing system over the Gulf of Alaska will force
the system that brings the cold air to be pushed out quickly since
it will try to force a longwave ridge over the central CONUS.
So temperatures should warm up to near 40 by Tuesday afternoon.
Wednesday will be warmer still. There should be a fair amount of
early March sunshine both days.

-Cooler Thursday into the weekend-

Then something a little odd happens. That system that brings the
cold air today, rotates off the coast of NA only to be forced back
westward into Quebec by Friday. That of course beings a back door
cold front through here in the Thursday time frame. At this point
this looks like a dry frontal passage. It will then be colder from
Thursday into Sunday.

-Maybe stormy (very wet) toward middle of next week -

That storm over the Gulf of Alaska will be forced east by the
next large Pacific storm by next weekend. That will then track
east across the CONUS. All indications are this will be a large
upper trough that will bring Gulf moisture to the Canadian
Boarder. Most of the ECMWF and GFS ensembles (80 total members)
favor around a half inch of QPF as the system comes through and
this has been true for several days now. This storm would be in
the Wednesday time frame. It is not out of the question if the
ECMWF has a clue we may even get snow out this storm too. However
head of it we will be very warm the first half of next week. Highs
well into the 50s are likely.
newest oldest
Jeff (Portland)
Jeff (Portland)

Those shades of red keep getting darker on the CPC outlooks. I love it !!

Andy W
Andy W

Hey Jeff, not sure if you saw Kirkwood’s write up today on woodtv?? He threw in a little wishcast at the end saying that the second half of the month could be colder and snowier!! That isn’t what the facts are showing though!

Jeff (Portland)
Jeff (Portland)

Yes, Matt loves his snow.. lol

Rocky (Rockford)
Rocky (Rockford)

Wow, look at those low temps for tonight! Incredible March cold!

Mookie
Mookie

Wow, Detroit hit 60 degrees Sunday! And many other locations in Southern Michigan were very close.

Andy W
Andy W

I love front loaded springs! Let it melt, let it melt, let it melt!!

Slim

Welcome to meteorological spring! This past February the mean temperature was 20.8 and that is a departure of -6.0 the high for the month was 48 on the 28th and the low was -12 on the 17th there was a total of 30.6” of snow for the month and that is good for the 6th snowiest February at Grand Rapids. For meteorological winter the total is 45.4” and so far for the season it is 45.8” At this time it is cloudy here and 30.
Slim

INDY
INDY

Wow over in snowfall and below normal in temps for February It’s been a wild winter ride best month in years for winter activitys I’m ready for some baseball and grilling now …INDY

Mookie
Mookie

It’s spring and the snowpack is virtually gone! Another mild week with no snow, and the CPC keeps the warmth on all month long. I love it!