March a Lion???

[Jason McIntosh]

I was looking into my GFS crystal ball today and got a glimpse of whats to come for early March '06. SNOW! SNOW! and you guessed it more SNOW!

Of course this thing isn't always accurate so I guess we'll have to wait and see. Some of you chasers in Oklahoma and Kansas have to be a little intrigued by the latest model runs. Looks like the first "real" opp of the year. You people do deserve some rain.

If this storm goes through IL i'll be wishing I was there. At least my shoveling technique is back after the last storm. :wink:

 

[Susan Strom]

It isn't odd to expect a good storm or two around the vernal equinox in Phoenix, but it has been so long since rain here (130+ days in a bizarre dry winter) that it's hard to believe a 40% chance is being called for tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it. I can't tell you how nice it will feel.

March has been a lion a couple times in terms of lightning chances. Some good chases in the past. Wasn't it March as well when Warren Faidley encountered a tornado years ago in Tucson, Arizona? It was a decent one too, touched ground, if I remember the pic correctly. Someone correct me if I'm not recalling that right, I could swear it was March though.

I sat out two fantastic March chases one year when they landed on nights I was doing a little police dept volunteering. Those were big storms - both March nights. One was quite an impressive lightning event. That's ok, it wasn't long before the next one.

Let's hope March is another lion this year.

 

[Joe Zemek]

A nice supercell came over central Phoenix two years ago March 4; I was not quite out of work and so was not able to chase but had to settle for wandering outside and looking up. Base was very low and upward motion and rotation were pretty good. However, not too many people noticed because of some other stuff going on east of here:

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/040304_rpts.html

Here's to March, and the possibility of rain.

 

[Joel Wright]

What the hell is snow?

 

[Justin Turcotte]

What the hell is snow?

Snow is that useless white junk that falls when your location is on the cold side of a persistent jet (eastern North Dakota). This same persistent and fast jet is allowing for ample subsidence for most of the plains leading to very warm and dry conditions. Each wave that traverses through continues to enhance snow cover in eastern NoDak. All that snow with rediculous warmth just to the south only further enhances the baroclinic boundary giving all these waves just a little extra punch to make up for the lack of moisture being fed into them. Meanwhile, depressing weather in Grand Forks remains cold with only two days in Feb with temps above freezing and that was for about an hour on either day. The GFS long range doesn't look too promising for much different up here. The only silver lining I can come up with is that if the general thermal boundary this winter continues into summer then perhaps there will be lots of MCSs plowing through the Northern Plains.

 

[JP Santiago]

What the hell is snow?

I've seen this mysterious white stuff here in Dallas as well. I'm not very familiar with it other than it causes ordinarily rational North Texas residents to pretend the apocalypse is near by making runs on grocery stores and Home Depots. Normal drivers who own SUVs start believing the laws of motion and friction don't apply to them and every TV station deploys 25 reporters metro-wide as "Live Team Coverage" to demonstrate to the world just how ill-equipped we are to handle this white stuff you folks call snow.

 

[Jonathan Whitehead]

I dk but its 90/33 here in OUN and dry as a bone. Not sure what all the talk about weather is but things still havent changed here from the way they were in January. Currently there are numerous fires across the state. Red flag conditions currently in effect. So status quo here

see www.srh.noaa.gov/oun for fire weather updates and current wildfire activity.

*oh btw yes that is a record for the day.

 

[Jason McIntosh]

Yeah JT, I have noticed the temperature map over the past 2 weeks since the big snowstorm in the plains and Midwest and it seems like there is this boundary line across the Dakotas through N. Iowa and S. Wisconsin. Almost as if the snowpack has created a wall or stationary cold front from the ground up. I was outside the other day in the afternoon and it was 35 degrees but I could feel the cold air radiating from the ground. I guess in all the winters I remember; I never noticed that before.