CheeselandSkies

It's sunny but not warm enough yet, there hasn't been nor is there the slightest hint of a severe weather threat anywhere in the nation in the near term; next week's system(s) look to be moisture-starved because somehow cold fronts are still scouring the Gulf even though we got rid of the abominable cold air over a week ago.

There's my complaint.

You can tell there is not enough going on with the weather again. This thread was a lot slower during the epic winter stretch Jan-Feb.

It's nice but not nice enough to do much outside unless you're a die-hard...that should change by Sunday. Still need some potential to track.

29 minutes ago, nrgjeff said:

Weekend was interesting along an east-west boundary. Thankfully it' didn't March 2-3, 2020 again.

Mid-Range the weekly models have shown that trough west with low SER look mid-month; and, operational models are similar now in the 11-15 day period. Weeks 2-3 are the edge of any forecast value; but, it's nice they agree. Forecast AO/NAO is positive. Bering Sea ridge (not Alaska) could anchor the downstream Rockies to Plains trough. Get thunderstorms going Mid-South to Ohio Valley?

Severe Season overall I'm somewhat bullish, but not crazy lit. I see La Nina hanging in there. It's not a pure La Nina resurgence since it's still first year, but it has that bullish lean for severe. Recent MJO activity and Kelvin wave placement in the Tropical Pacific has juiced the La Nina status (esp 3.4 region). +TNI is in question. Right off South America (region 1&2) is still cool. It had been warning up; but, the said activity impacted the whole basin. If 1&2 can warm to near or above normal, while 3.4 stays cooler than normal, then we have +TNI flavor. Either are bullish. Missing one should not be bearish if the other holds.

Finally got a chance to compare La Nina flavors, and I think this year is closer to 2012 and 2008 than 2011. The latter was a true resurgent La Nina second year, strongest correlation with severe; but, we are still first year. However 2021 looks more active than 2017 or 2018, weaker or weakening La Ninas. 2021 is La Nina hanging in, not technically resurgent, but holding well.

Very interesting pair of analogs because those years behaved very differently during the spring and summer here in the upper Midwest. Very wet/stormy with numerous tornadoes and widespread flooding problems ('08) vs. exceedingly warm and dry ('12).

Not a lot of significant precip in the 7-day. Had thought as of a week or two ago, there was a more active look for March? At the rate this melt is going, we are going to need to start seeing some rain or we will be looking at the risk of drought, as opposed to the spring flooding potential we were concerned about awhile ago.

I swear last year it took until well into May to so much as hear a rumble of thunder around here, which made the early, agonizing weeks of the pandemic/lockdown all the more frustrating.

52 minutes ago, roardog said:

So severe weather season is a dud because the first couple of weeks of March look less than ideal? This is like all of the talk in here about snow futility records last December. This is the first spring in a long time that has a decent looking -PDO. I think we should give it a chance.

Oh, I'm more than happy to give it a chance, but the last few years have significantly tempered my optimism/expectations going into spring.

Had hoped the La Nina and -PDO would take care of that this year.

8 hours ago, andyhb said:

Or we could just drop into split flow for the umpteenth time in the past decade and erase any chance for severe/a decent spring pattern, smh.

7 minutes ago, madwx said:

after a brief colder shot early next week there are signs that the middle and end of next week could get downright mild, with 50s and 60s getting at least into southern Wisconsin

I used to discount early season setups at this latitude out of hand (given that we can have low-level instability issues into late May), but events like 4/9/15, 3/15/16 and 2/28/17 have given me a new respect for them. Heck, we've done better in oddball "off-season" months (even including 12/1/18) in recent years than we have in May and June. Last year also had that late March potential big day that largely busted, but still produced a few tornadoes.

8 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

It's early but I'd be surprised if it's not a warmer than average summer.  If the areas upstream are in drought (and expands into the Plains), then it raises the odds of generating some intensely hot airmasses out there.  Whether or not we actually get into a technical drought in this part of the country, even a few weeks of relative drying out would make it more likely that some of that intense heat would spill eastward.

The good news is we are going into spring with a healthy (in fact for some, record) snowpack in place, as opposed to 2011-12 when the entire central CONUS dried to a crisp and started to bake in March and never stopped until almost fall.

I have to think that the recent winter storms in the southern Plains will help as well, since it's unusual for them to be going into spring with any snowpack at all in place, isn't it?

The blustery winds today even prior to precip onset made it feel less mild than I was expecting/hoping for.

4 hours ago, michsnowfreak said:

Will we end up with yet another year of late season accumulating snow events in April and may?

11 minutes ago, Angrysummons said:

Its ok to  ̶a̶d̶m̶i̶t̶  hope the pandemic is ending.

6 hours ago, frostfern said:

You mean May.

Don't. Even.

4 hours ago, madwx said:

Radiating very well tonight.  Down to -5 already

Thought we were supposed to be on the upswing by now.

7 hours ago, Frog Town said:

I don't know if I'm missing something, but succ-u-weather seems to be thinking this next system is gonna be pretty substantial for a lot of us.  I even checked to see if I was looking at an outdated map.  

FIFY.

12 minutes ago, madwx said:

waiting for the official number but looks like we got down to -12 or -13 this morning.  Just short of the record again.  We just had the 7th coldest first half of February for MSN.  Looking forward to the slow climb out of this now.  The cold has overstayed its welcome.

For me it had already overstayed its welcome when it first showed up on the GFS and Euro inside of "probably a mirage" range.

...aaaaaand were STILL looking at lows in the single digits through the end of next week.  

22 minutes ago, hlcater said:

better post it before it goes away

What the heck happened to Missouri into WC IL?

* Also SE MI.

23 minutes ago, CoachLB said:

I didn’t order thunderstorms for February.

I would love that.

My fiancee's dad lives in San Antonio. They have a low of 11 forecast for Monday night, but then back up to 57 by Friday. We won't be seeing that until April...if we're lucky.

My parents are 71/69 (Dad turns 72 next month, Mom turns 70 in April) and already had their appointments rescheduled further out due to shortages.

10 hours ago, madwx said:

Fairly consistent signal of temps around freezing by next weekend and then periods of above average temps after that.  The 20s next week will feel like a heat wave 

Passed a dude wearing shorts in the hall of my apartment building yesterday...hopefully he was just heading to the little gym we have but you never know around here.

This morning has actually been one of the rougher ones this winter as far as traffic accidents in southern Wisconsin. I think it's a combination of people not taking it seriously because we weren't forecast to (and didn't) get a big snowstorm, and the inefficacy of salt at these temperatures.