MikJournal Monday 03/05/2018...March Madness (Weather Style)

Good Monday to ya! It's that time of year. College basketball and March Madness. But, the weather will be displaying its own version of March Madness. In fact, the weather already has shown a great deal of madness recently.

Through March 1, Kentucky is the leader in preliminary, and mostly confirmed, tornadoes in the United States. At 14, the closest second place is Alabama with 8.

Late last week and over the weekend, a monster storm ravaged the East coast with high winds, flooding, and heavy snow. Power is still out for many residents this morning.

While many of us here in Kentucky dealt with record-setting rainfall for February, other locations have seen some of their driest winters ever. For example, Wichita in Kansas saw their 3rd driest winter on record, their driest since 1922/23. And that 1" of snow they saw, some 0.7" of that was sleet.

As the ongoing dry spell continues, places like Colorado are experiencing early season wildfires that are destroying people's homes and barns. As I write this, in Elbert county southeast of Denver, at least 5 homes and 4 barns were either heavily damaged or destroyed by a rapidly spreading wildfire yesterday morning.

In addition, wild temperature swings are occurring with all of the dry air in place and windy conditions. Here are a few examples from Sunday for the high and low temperatures...

Lamar, CO  high of 80; low of 24
Limon, CO high of 71; low of 16
Pueblo, CO high of 75; low of 25

Blizzard conditions are expected across parts of South Dakota along with wind gusts perhaps exceeding 60 mph at times.

One of my favorite windiest places that I follow is in Glasgow, Montana. Their average wind speed for the month so far is 17.5 mph. Here in central Kentucky, our average wind speed for the month ranges between 9 and 10 mph so far. But, it is the snowfall that has been the big story for the residents in Glasgow. A daily record of 13.3 inches fell yesterday, just missing their record 24-hour snowfall of 14.1" set on April 2, 1940. A total of over 52" has been recorded so far for the season, which is well above normal.

Our weather looks to skew to the wintry side of things. However, teleconnection patterns do not suggest any major event. Even if we did get a heavy snow accumulation, which can and has happened in March, I do not foresee anything that will stick around for a while. The pattern just does not support an Arctic outbreak like we saw in late December and January. In fact, I think Spring will become more noticeable as we enter the second half of the month.

Just remember, this does not mean Old Man Winter won't get lost. He'll manage to find his way back. March and April usually have many up and down periods. So, be ready.

Have a good week everyone.

MS