March and Spring? Don’t bet on it.
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve been here. The development of a year round skywarn program and the uncontrolable winter weather has made it difficult to sit down and have a compelling thought. But, here I am. A lull in the action, although, not for long. By the way, I have not forgotten about the series and global climate I promised. I hope to get to it during the off season. Offseason you say. Unfortuneatly, when we started working on the hazard levels, we accidently fell into a year round skywarn program. Many have asked when we were going to do a winter weather skywarn. Little did we know this work would not only cover winter but could be used all year. We also never thought the development would occur in the snowiest winter in 27 years. We look forward to the winter season as our resting time from all the severe weather. Now it appears the summer season will be our relaxing period. I probably should not have made that comment as typical La Nina patterns lead to a busy spring severe weather season, especially in April, but enough of that. March is usually associated with spring and warmer weather. Well, it will probably still happen. The average first 70 degree day over the last 20 years is March 20th and the first 80 on April 15th. But it will likely be a wild March with occasional warmth follow by occasion snow storms and cold weather. Although the chances of anymore subzero mornings from this point forward is about 5%. The last one was in March 2002. As of now, there has been 68″ in Antioch, 62″ in Mudelein and 51″ here in Northbrook. Would not be surprised to see another 12 - 18″ added to that by the end of the winter. Now if we don’t get it, don’t come screaming at me,”You said we were going to get more snow”. March is a stange month. You can have all the storm systems coming into the right place and get all rain and then you could get all snow. So I guess a chicken factor prediction would be 2- 22″. The wild pattern of storms hitting the west coast and roaring across the plains is still working. Don’t see that changing for another 3 weeks. So if your wondering when this will all end, watch the storms on the west coast. If there aren’t any for 10 days or more, ahhhhhhhhhhh, spring can’t be far away.
