No severe weather through march 11

[Kevan Wagner]

I was looking through the Storm Prediction Center day 4-8 and there are no thunderstorms forecast through March 11 .I was wondering if we will have to wait until the middle and the end of the month to have severe weather.Does this lack of severe weather have to do with all of the cold weather that has enveloped the eastern half of the country.Does anyone see a pattern change any time soon?

 

[Jeff Duda]

Yes and yes to your questions.

While this isn't exactly accurate, you generally aren't going to get thunderstorms when cold air masses are in place. And by cold, I mean winter-type air masses. There's no moisture and no instability.

Medium-range models have been forecasting a pattern change. After this current wave goes through and slams everyone with cold weather through the end of the week, it appears there will be no more bigtime deep troughs sinking in from Canada to spill more cold air across the central/eastern US for at least a week or so. It won't exactly get warm and springlike, but at least the repetitive cold and snow will stop for awhile. I don't see any obvious signs of a synoptic scale disturbance causing a severe weather event in the future, as the medium-range models look fairly dry across most of the US except for the southeast and Ohio River valley regions.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Last night's 6Z GFS teases the possibility of a set up in the lower MS valley/Dixie Alley region on or about the 15th. That model's been doing that off and on for the last few days, depicting "something interesting" in the late second into third week of the month. Of course it's been all over the place with the surface features, usually sending the LP through the central Plains/upper MS valley way too far removed from the moisture for there to be any instability in the warm sector. The latest looks at least more climatologically realistic. The only thing that can really be said at this point is that it's nice to see at least the *chance* of a system or two out there. Lends credence to the idea that we'll be transitioning out of this pattern of persistent cold shots for a while.