MikJournal Monday 03/14/16

Still getting over the loss of that hour you lost Sunday morning? Well, up and at 'em. It's Monday. Thankfully, it's the only Monday of the week. It gets better from here on out.

Unless you hate cold weather this time of the year. Yeah, later on this week, you will notice a rather rude shock to the senses as colder air sets up shop in our part of the Ohio Valley at least for a few days.

A rare alignment of the teleconnection pattern is about to unfold. AO-, NAO-, EPO-, and PNA+ will work in conjunction to deliver an unseasonably cold air mass. It may not be January or early February type of cold, but it will feel wintry around here, especially after recent temperatures in the 70's and dew point readings near 60.

Nevertheless, the long range outlook still looks promising as I believe Spring will continue to battle and provide more above normal readings than below normal ones.

In fact, for some locations, this may be the warmest March since 2012. That remains to be seen for our region, since I do not know exactly how long or how cold the upcoming pattern will be.

But, once we emerge from this next cold spell, I'll be able to better determine if this March may challenge some of the previous warm March's on record.

Now, so far for this month, I have recorded 3.14" as of the end of March 13. I did find several Mesonet locations that are beating me this month, primarily in western Kentucky....

Murray (Calloway)  6.35"
Mayfield (Graves)  5.92"
Benton (Marshall)  5.84"
Cadiz (Trigg)  5.47"
Hopkinsville (Christian) 5.25"
Princeton (Caldwell) 4.72"

Also, keep in mind many of these locations saw rain after midnight, that I have not included with the totals above..

Have you seen California's rain totals for the month? Impressive....

Redding  8.73" (9 out of 10 days it has rained)
Red Bluff 4.67"
Sacramento Executive  4.97"
Stockton  3.48"
Modesto  3.40"
Marysville  7.26"
Vacaville  6.87"
San Francisco (downtown) 6.24"
Santa Rosa  9.12"
Mount Shasta 9.83"

And one of my favorite locations at Forks WA...at 15.41" for the month and over 53" for the year.

Unfortunately, historic or catastrophic flooding has been ongoing in the south. Several locations have picked up close to 24" of rain in the last several days. I have seen several amounts of 16-22" across much of western Louisiana. Sad.

Also, the NWS out of North Little Rock will be investigating several areas where tornadoes were either spotted on the ground or damage was reported.

Welcome to Spring, everyone. It looks like this could be a busy Spring for many of us.

MS