GETTING WARMER!

It's March and it's spring so it *has* to get warmer, right? Well, it surely has... compared to where we've been. Saturday was the warmest day many of us have had since early November... we're talking nearly five months here!

Not too long ago we were talking about subzero temperatures... 20 days ago, back on March 4th. Cedar Rapids bottomed out at -9 that morning, Moline was at -1. Now, temperatures are running much closer to normal, but there was a big deficit to climb out of.

Temperatures were running well below normal during the beginning of the month. As of the 23rd, Cedar Rapids is still 6.7 degrees below normal and Moline is 3.4 degrees below normal. We are going to raise these numbers a bit though over the next few days. Here's the high temperatures over the next few days.

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

As it's been getting warmer, the snowpack has been dwindling. And with the mild temperatures this week more snow will be melting away. Here's a neat animation of the melting snow over the last few weeks.

This is typical of this time of year. Average temperatures climb due to the increased amount of daylight, as we gain around three minutes of daylight per day. We're up to 12 hours and 20 minutes of daylight right now compared to 11 hours of daylight just a month ago. And in a month from today... we'll be up to 13 hours and 45 minutes of daylight!

Of course with the warmer temperatures will come rain. Spring is always full of energy and moisture and the pattern will turn more active as the week goes on. Here's a look at the seven day precipitation total on the GFS:

The mild temperatures and active pattern over the next two weeks will of course have consequences on our rives. Something we will be watching closely.

RK