GaWx

I’m most looking forward to 3/13 and especially 3/16-20, the colder of the two periods. Yes, it’s pretty short but I’ll take whatever I can get before summer resumes.

Thanks, Chuck. That appeared to be a good call to me, too. But so far, crude is staying down with it ~$84. Are you surprised? Of course, it can turn on a dime at just about any point. Regardless, anyone who had the courage to short it near its Sun evening 119 high is up a huge amount if they’re still short!

Now you see it: Now you almost don’t (to nobody’s surprise of course):

Indeed. I count only ~6 days of cold in the bulk of the E US: 3/13 and 3/16-20. But the 2nd one is quite intense for mid-March and I’ll thoroughly enjoy it as this short period of false winter gives us down here relief from the false summer! A -PNA, +AO, and +EPO are aiding the warmth along with MJO phases 5 and 6 through yesterday. Those two have averaged the warmest phases during March following a Niña winter. The main opponent is and will continue to be the -WPO, which in combo with MJO phase 8 (2nd coldest March Niña phase) is likely what’s going to allow the brief two cold periods.

The +1.85 NAO of March of 1989 is in danger of being exceeded for a new record strong March +NAO: Remember to double these to very roughly estimate the tabular values, which means that today’s GEFS mean is progging a March 1-24 NAO way up at ~~+2.3 to +2.75!

Thanks for your explanation. I see that the surface temp is safely above 32. Here’s the surface pressures of the relevant 6Z GEFS members as of the end of the snow period for portions of NC: what do they (2, 4, 7, and 14) have in common? lowest SLP both stronger and centered ~150-200 miles off SE coast: And here’s the 6 hour qpf: check out member 14 with its 1.25” swath:

The 6Z GFS suite is looking really stupid in being on its own including all of the main short term models in showing a snow threat in portions of C and E NC on Thu (3/12). Why is the GFS showing this?? GFS (Kuchera): GEFS mean (10:1): GEFS mean is almost all from the clueless members 4 and 14 with a small assist by 2 and 7 while the other 26 members essentially have nothing outside of the mtns:

It’s already been like summer for many in the SE on many days this month. Many are headed for one of the warmest Marches on record. I have enough summer as it is. I’d prefer March be more like a spring month. Thus, I’m looking forward to the cooldown and am hoping April overall comes in less warm than March. This has zero to do with snow.

Contributing to the problem of models looking colder further out in time is that WxBell Euro 2m Euro Weeklies maps are too cold, something I’ve emphasized in many posts. I know that @donsutherland1and Anthony are, among others, fully aware of this issue. How do I know they’re too cold? I’ve on many occasions compared the WB maps to the in-house ecmwf maps, especially in later weeks as the WB cold errors grow. The WB maps are essentially always colder and often by a significant amount in later weeks. Has anyone ever wondered why the NE US and much of W US are just about always below normal on WB during later weeks of the Weeklies? So, as the periods get closer, the WB maps more often than not warm up as the magnitude of the cold errors reduces.

Crude front month plunged 10 cents in just 25 minutes a little while ago! I wonder what happened. It’s now down 5 on the day to 86, which is an amazing $33 lower than its 119 peak just 17-18 hours ago! This is an historic day for crude oil in terms of volatility. Edit: Now I know why. I just read that Trump says the war “could” end soon. But he could say the opposite tomorrow and it go right back up. After all he only days ago said it could easily go longer than a month. It must be a nightmare to trade this and stocks due to whiplash! But that also provides opportunities if timed right due to luck. Is this a cousin to the TACO trade?

KATL’s warmest March on record is the 64.5F of 2012. That appears out of reach. However, their 2nd warmest is the 61.8 of 1945. Is it reachable? As it is now, a record warmest first 1/2 of March near 64.5 is looking likely there assuming I haven’t missed any warmer ones. But then it’s looking to cool down significantly to ~50 for 3/16-22. That would bring the MTD down to ~60 as of March 22. After that, March 23-31 would need to average above 66 to get the full March average to 61.8. That’s ~8 AN for 3/23-31. Although it isn’t looking explicitly that warm, it is looking pretty mild on the extended ensembles. So, I suppose there’d be a chance for it to end up that warm assuming models aren’t warm enough although that’s 2-3 weeks away, too far to be able to predict.

A good number of the last posts here would imho better belong in the 25-26 thread instead of 26-27. Isn’t March of ‘26 part of 25-26? And then the last post was about DJF 25-6.

IF this occurs, we’d be looking at the realistic possibility for the 2nd warmest March on record in places like Atlanta. Currently, their warmest on record is the 64.5F of 2012. That appears out of reach. However, their 2nd warmest is the 61.8 of 1945. As it is now, a record warmest first 1/2 of March near 64.5 is looking likely there assuming I haven’t missed any warmer ones. But then it’s looking to cool down significantly to ~50 for 3/16-22. That would bring the MTD down to ~60 as of March 22. Then March 23-31 would need to average 66.2 to get the full March average to 61.8. That’s ~8 AN for 3/23-31. I suppose there’d be a chance for it to be that warm although that’s 2-3 weeks away, too far to be able to predict.

Today’s MJO forecasts: GEFS EPS: @EastonSN+

6Z GEFS clown mean for St. Patrick’s Day at 10:1:

Thankfully, though the front month of crude is still up sharply from Friday (~10-11%), some sanity has returned relative to where it was at its 119 peak near 10:30PM last night as it has fallen back to the low 100s. Later months hadn’t been up nearly as sharply based on the feeling that crude won’t stay up more than a relatively short period. Once crude finally does start settling down and falling back, the ever-present challenge of retail following through will be there as they love spiking their prices quickly and reducing them back much more slowly.

This is excluding the huge rise last week, which was the largest one week rise in the history of crude futures!

Much needed heavy rain, due to drought, from a recently popped up thunderstorm now. This will also help to clean off the widespread pine pollen that’s on everything.

Purely for entertainment as this is well out into fantasyland on 12Z GFS:

-My post above yours shows that the March Euro going back to 2005 was too warm by the most in 2014 and 2017 (1.1 too warm). -2014 OHC wasn’t that warm in Feb but was in March -2017 OHC wasn’t that warm in Feb/Mar -1990, which is too far back to see model progs, had quite warm OHC in Feb/Mar (+1.1), but it didn’t lead to El Nino as it peaked at only +0.4 per ONI Edit: This shows that OHC may have at least temporarily peaked in Feb:

It might cool back to ~63-4 this evening due to the rain, but it shouldn’t get back down to 60 before midnight as it looks now.

More on the Euro warm bias for predicting ENSO ONI: Euro JAS ONI March prog vs actual 2026: ~+1.5/? 2025: +0.26/-0.28 2024: -0.39/-0.07 2023: +1.11/+1.37 2022: +0.04/-0.87 2021: +0.10/-0.45 2020: +0.09/-0.53 2019: +0.94/+0.19 2018: +0.5/+0.3 2017: +1.1/-0.1 2016: -0.4/-0.5 2015: +1.8/+1.9 2014: +1.3/+0.1 2013: +0.4/-0.3 JJA: 2012: +0.6/+0.3 2011: -0.5/-0.6 2010: -0.3/-1.1 2009: +0.4/+0.5 2008: -0.6/-0.4 MJJ: 2007: -0.2/-0.5 2006: +0.3/0 JJA: 2005: +0.4/-0.1 Summary of March 2005-25 Euro ONI progs: -2025’s +1.5 prog is 2nd warmest to 2015’s +1.8, which verified very closely -14 too warm with 6 being 0.7+ too warm -5 within 0.2 (2 of those El Niño) -only 2 too cold, though 1 was El Niño, with both being 0.3 too cold and recent (2023 and 2024) -Avg miss: +8/21 = +0.4 with largest +1.2 (twice) -Avg miss for Nino alone: only +0.2 with misses being -0.3, +0.2, -0.1, +1.2, -0.1, +0.3 -Keep in mind that these progs are for ONI, not RONI

More on the Euro warm bias for predicting ENSO ONI: Euro JAS ONI March prog vs actual 2026: ~+1.5/? 2025: +0.26/-0.28 2024: -0.39/-0.07 2023: +1.11/+1.37 2022: +0.04/-0.87 2021: +0.10/-0.45 2020: +0.09/-0.53 2019: +0.94/+0.19 2018: +0.5/+0.3 2017: +1.1/-0.1 2016: -0.4/-0.5 2015: +1.8/+1.9 2014: +1.3/+0.1 2013: +0.4/-0.3 JJA: 2012: +0.6/+0.3 2011: -0.5/-0.6 2010: -0.3/-1.1 2009: +0.4/+0.5 2008: -0.6/-0.4 MJJ: 2007: -0.2/-0.5 2006: +0.3/0 JJA: 2005: +0.4/-0.1 Summary of March 2005-25 Euro ONI progs: -2025’s +1.5 prog is 2nd warmest to 2015’s +1.8, which verified very closely -14 too warm with 6 being 0.7+ too warm -5 within 0.2 (2 of those El Niño) -only 2 too cold, though 1 was El Niño, with both being 0.3 too cold and recent (2023 and 2024) -Avg miss: +8/21 = +0.4 with largest +1.2 (twice) -Avg miss for Nino alone: only +0.2 with misses being -0.3, +0.2, -0.1, +1.2, -0.1, +0.3 -Keep in mind that these progs are for ONI, not RONI

The current record number of non-shared record highs in a single March at KATL is 3 set by two of them: 1974’s Mar 8-10 and 1907’s 20th, 22nd, and 28th. Before today, 1974 had been the only March with a current 4 non-shared record highs for Mar 7-10. Wednesday’s (3/11) high is forecasted to be close to the record of 82. So, if Wed is 83+, then 2026 would join 1974 and 1907 with 3 non-shared record highs. Stay tuned! March 1-11 of 2026 is likely headed to a record high for Mar 1-11, beating out Mar 1-11 of 1974. It’s likely going to end up near the normal for Apr 25-May 5! I may as well say that March 1-15 of 2026 is also likely headed for a record high there for March 1-15.

KATL once again had a record high today of 83, beating the daily record by 3! Tonight’s 0Z runs will be the last runs to be released during standard time. Starting with tomorrow’s 6Z runs, they’ll be released an hour later on the clock due to the switch to DST at 2AM. That won’t change back til early Nov assuming no changes in the law before then.