- May 9, 2017

PLOP, PLOP, FIZZ, FIZZ...A WINTER HANG OVER!

You would never know it where I rode it out but this was a snowy winter over the Northern Hemisphere. According to the Rutgers snow lab this was the 8th snowiest since 1967.

Across the Midwest amounts varied greatly with the north getting much more than the central or south. Here's a graphic from the Midwest Climate summary showing snowfall as a percent of mean.

The only area to get normal snowfall is the narrow dark green corridor which runs from NC Iowa into SE Minnesota and much of central Wisconsin. Elsewhere the winter was pretty much a bust. The majority of my area saw about 25-50% of its normal annual snowfall. Right here in Cedar Rapids the seasonal total came out to 17.3" (most of that fell by December 18th). This is now the 3rd consecutive year with sub-par amounts. Rest assured Terry is not happy about that! Anyway its over and I'm ready to put it behind me. Good riddance...

The next order of business is this cool weather pattern we've been battling. It was 90 today as far north as Omaha with 80s into central Iowa. However, that warmth gets severed tomorrow as a cold front sags into Missouri. Most of my are will see highs in the 60s the rest of the week. The coolest day looks to be Wednesday when clouds and scattered showers hold readings to the low 60s. The GFS has this for highs.

The forecast gets more complex over the weekend when a strong closed low digs into the Great Lakes. You can see it below.

Models have been vacillating on the amount of phasing that takes place with the southern stream. More phasing sharpens the existing omega block and locks it in place for a few days resulting in below normal temperatures. Less phasing means a much warmer weekend and following week.

The CFSv2 has the cooler look of more phasing. Here's the day 1-10 temperature departures from the CFSv2.

The latest GFS goes the way of less phasing and its 5-10 day departures look this way.

It's a bit hard to pin this one down so time will be needed to tell the ultimate tail.

Whatever the outcome. it appears the rest of May will be dominated by an active wet pattern. The fight between summer and spring will be in high gear and the models are keeping the central U.S. soggy much of May. The EURO weeklies show this for total precipitation the next 32 days.