After the cold days and even colder nights of Friday and Saturday brought Feb. 2020 to a frigid end, March appears to be opening as a lamb Sunday with a projected hight of 53 Sunday and a week ahead of highs mostly in the 50s d lows above freezing in our part of Southwestern Virginia.
While the highs are expected to drop into the mid to low the 40s by the end of this week, it should rebound back into the mid-50s the following week and last through at least through the mid-part of March, the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg says.
The weather folks are calling this winter one of the warmest on record. The Weather Channel adds:
- This winter will likely be one of the warmest on record in the Lower 48.
- The five warmest winters on record preceded a warmer than average spring.
- But there are some differences between this year and other warm winters.
December and January were the warmest two months on record in the lower 48 states, according to statistics on record since 1895. No state had a mean temperature “significantly below average” in that period, the channel reports.
Computer models indicate above-average temperatures are likely for most of the Lower 48 from March through May.
The positive AO and the strong polar vortex will likely persist into March, which will limit the chances for a prolonged cold in the contiguous U.S.
This forecast information, combined with past very warm winters being followed by warmer-than-average springs, suggest that a warm spring is likely ahead.
Roanoke Times weather guru Kevin Myatt says pretty much the same:
Winter looks as if will get pounded into the canvas next week by a sharp warmup and there is no reason from the continued tight polar vortex and the arrangement of the hemispheric pattern to expect a significant recovery of it deep into March, when it gets increasingly more difficult for winter to recover as the sun angle rises, the days get longer and the mean jet stream position drifts north.
However, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says we can also expect wetter than average condition here in the Eastern Park of the United States, which could also bring flooding — a problem that has hit the Southeast in recent years.
This winter has brought more than average amounts of moisture. Thankfully, it was not snow or ice.
March’s weather should bring Spring Fever to most of the area if it hasn’t happened already.
Looks like that pesky groundhog in Pennsylvania got his prediction right back on the first day of February. it looks like an early Spring.