Geoboy645

Well Madison officially did not cross below 70 on the hourly obs, therefore Madison just broke the record for earliest 70+ minimum ever. The previous record from was 71 on May 18th, 1877 from the looks of things. So not only did we beat it, we beat it by 7 days. And even crazier yet, the low was only 72 degrees. The earliest low that warm wasn't until May 24th, 2010. So we beat out our first 70+ degree minimum by a week and our first 72+ minimum by almost 2 full weeks. Just an absolutely insane heat wave for this time of year. Up there with November 2020 and September 2017 for the A-tier of unusually anomalous heatwaves in our region. March 2012 and February 2017 being S-tier IMO.

And we have a really good shot of making that three in a row tomorrow as well. That would almost certainly be the earliest three day stretch of 90's on record.

I was looking around last night, and I'm not 100% sure but I think yesterday was Madison's earliest 90 since 1980. 2012 wasn't until May 19th and the other 90+ record highs are from before 1980. And I am struggling to think of any other year between then and now that could have maybe had 90's before now. Maybe 1988 but that's about it. The 1980 90+ was the absoutely ridiculous 94 on 4/22/1980, which is probably one of the most anomalous temperature days we have ever had.

Nothing like having all day snow flurries on *checks notes* April 26th. At least in the longer range it's looking like this week will probably the last of the real cold stuff. After tomorrow night we don't get near freezing for lows for at least the next 5 days. Even with still lackluster highs in the 50's, that should finally get us going for greenup around here. About time.

Models have been pretty consistently showing at least a medium level severe threat on our region on the 12th and 13th. The 12th has triple point potential out in Iowa and the 13th could be a very large part of the forum. The 13th already has most of illinois under a 15 or 30 percent on the day 4-8 outlook. This could be a very active few days of severe weather.

Today was day 11 with at least a trace of precipitation at KGRB. That has to be getting close to a record for KGRB. We probably have a break here the next two days, but then have more chances of rain pretty much all week next week. Since March 5th we have had over 7.5" of rain, including the rainiest March on record for KGRB with essentially 6". Any semblance of drought here from over the fall and winter is totally gone, at least short-term. It will be very interesting to see if this wet pattern continues later into the spring or if we go back into the dry pattern from fall and winter. Now only if we could get some warmth with this and we will be right back on schedule for green-up.

I give this winter a solid D+. We have had all of 25.6" snow this winter at Madison. And most of that is from the three clippers in the end of january and from a couple weeks ago. We just now left the top 10 least snowiest winters list. We haven't even had a 6"+ snowfall this winter, barring anything weird happening in the next month. The only pluses about this winter were that what little snow we did have on the ground stayed around for quite a while with the cold January. And thanks to this winter's dryness we had an unusually sunny January, or at least it felt like that. And while yes 12/15 was an awesome storm that's going to be remembered for quite a while, it really sucked from a pure winter perspective. Overall just a cold, dry, incredibly boring winter.

Forgot to post this yesterday, not too much change this week for the most part. Some slight reduction in Illinois and Northern Minnesota, but that's about it.

Yeah the way this winter has been with barely any snow but just constant cold dry NW flow is literally how a North Dakota winter is most of the time.

Washburn has a serious shot IMO of breaking the official 24 hr state record for snowfall of 26" set in 1904 in Neillsville. For reference: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec/records/all/maxs. Now that does come with the caveat that we likely have had some LE events by Hurley that have broke that record, there's just no stations where the max snowfall normally occurs.

I am so glad that I went from almost a foot to 4 inches. Not from SE trend, but a N trend. F*** this winter.

Can't wait for this to end up weak and over Springfield as well.

Well things just got worse in this week's drought monitor.

This may be a bit early, but considering the incredibly lackluster winter so far for most of the region and the antecedent dry conditions, I think it's time for this thread. Most of the northern and western areas of the Midwest have been dealing with some sort of drought for at least the last 8-9 months if not over a year. Last year was a top 10-15 driest year for much of this part of the region. The extended forecast and climate indices show no sign of this changing anytime soon. We are entering a second La Nina year, which often lead to some of our hottest and driest years in the Midwest. We have had expanding drought through the winter, which doesn't happen very often in our climate. Now obviously there is the caveat that all it takes is a wet period in spring to erase the drought, but that doesn't seem very likely this spring.