SPRING IT ON!

Spring is in full swing and Sunday with mild temperatures across the country and severe weather in the southeast.

All the green, yellow, orange and red.. beautiful! In fact this is the warmest stretch of weather my local area has seen since late October!

Before we talk about what's to come, let's talk a little bit about the winter we're leaving behind. Snowfall was generally near and above normal across the Midwest.

Not all of my local area had above normal snowfall. But Cedar Rapids is ending the winter above normal with 41.6" of snow. This is the first above normal snow the 2013-2014 season. Additionally, it's more snow than the last two winters combined... by NINE inches!

Now we're moving up and warming up with warmer afternoon and nighttime temperatures. And getting down to the freezing mark will start to happen less and less now.

The average last 32 degree temperature in much of the Upper Midwest is in late April to early May. Overall it doesn't look like we'll have many (or any) sub-freezing nights as we end April (with the exception of Minnesota and Wisconsin).

This week temperatures are going to be near and above normal. Here's a look at the next 16 days in Cedar Rapids on the long range GFS ensemble --

By the time we enter May next week we could be seeing some 80s pop up - which is not uncommon for this time of year. Otherwise for this week two weak fronts will move though. From the graph above you can see the cooler days on Wednesday and Friday.

These fronts will not produce much in precipitation... check out the precipitation for the next seven days.

Not much is going on... and that's all right with me. Enjoy the warmth!

Roll spring!

RK