THE DOWNHILL SLIDE....

That March sun is getting stronger by the day. It's certainly taking the steam out of air masses that 3 months ago would have produced highs in the teens and 20s. Today the same air at 5,000 ft gives you surface temperatures in the 40s and 50s if the sun is out and the ground is bare. A bright shiny day and a stiff south wind can easily get you mid 60s.

Unfortunately, with the official start of spring just 3 days away, the temperature trends the next 2 weeks are less than springlike. While we'll get a good day now and then, if you average it all out, it looks like the rest of March will end up on the chilly side. The CFSv2 shows this for the remainder of the month.

The Climate Prediction Center has this for 10-14 day temperature departures. Not much warmth anywhere in the country.

The next 15 days on the EURO EPS ensembles look like this. Every single day below the norm which is represented by the red line.

The cool regime could dominate April, especially the first half of the month. The CFSv2 is showing this for April departures.

CPC is not so dire depicting this for April departures.

Precipitation is far more difficult to predict so I'll just show you the next 2 weeks which is more reliable, especially on the ensembles. The GEFS and its members show this the next 16 days.

The EURO EPS ensembles look like this.

All told, the next 2 weeks look a little chilly but near normal in the precipitation department. No matter what happens, we're on the downhill slide and in a month the trees will be budding and I'll be mowing the grass. I'm OK with that. If it can't snow, it might as well be 80! Roll weather...TS