A Quiet Week, But a Chilly One

3/4/07 5:50pm

After this weekend's snow shower activity and cooler temps., the upcoming work week will be a cool one, but will feature a slow warming trend towards the end of the week ahead of our next storm system for Fri. night and Sat. But, before we get to that system, let's talk about the snow! Okay, we are into Meteorological Spring now, but the calendar still says winter for several more weeks.

We picked up a couple of dustings from Sat into early Sun. morning. Probably total, a half inch fell here at the Weather Office in Burlington, KY. In Oregonia, OH, at my branch office location, I recorded over an inch there! Today's high was a chilly 33 at CVG! I recorded 37 here at the Weather Office in Burlington, KY. Normal highs for this time of year is 49, almost 50 degrees! We were 16 degrees below normal for the high today! WOW! The winds also made the wind chills dip down into the teens and 20s at times.

For tomorrow, we can expect a mix of sun and cluds, with more clouds in the afternoon. A weak cold front will be dropping down into the region. I can not rule out a few scattered flurries with this front, but nothing more. No accumulation is expected. Highs will be in the lower 40s tomorrow. Both the 12Z GFS and NAM show another cold front dropping in Tues. night / early Wed. morning. The majority of the energy, although weak, will be north of I-70. At this point, it'll be a dry cold front for Cincinnati. Temps. on Tues will be in the lower 40s with early highs on Wed. in the lower 40s before falling during the day with the passage of the cold front.

By Thurs, we'll begin to see slightly warmer air enter the region on the back side of high pressure. Highs will be in the upper 40s to near 50, and into the lower and middle 50s for Fri. The 12Z GFS brings in another front for Fri. night and Sat. To me at this point, the system looks weak, and not nearly as strong as the last few that have rolled thru here. The GFS is indicating max precip amounts of a half inch along and South of the OH River, with a quarter inch to the NW of Cincinnati. I think the GFS seems a tad wet at this point, so I'm going with a quarter of an inch for the area. Highs will slowly drop into the middle 40s by next Sun. but with dry conditions. It currently looks like a 50/50 weekend.

Long Term Discussion:

The 12Z GFS again shows another warming trend from March 12-15th, however, by the afternoon of the 15th, we have yet another cold front coming down from the North. This one looks a little stronger then the previous two, and the precip. event here may end as an inch or two of snow during the nighttime hours of the 15th. Models are currently showing a quarter inch of precip. with the 540 line shown to our South at the 228 hour mark.

http://www.weatherunderground.com/modelmaps/maps.asp?model=NAM&domain=US

Then click ahead a few more frames. Look at the cold shot of air the model brings in behind this storm system. If the current model solutions were to pan out, we'd have more below normal highs in the 30s and low 40s March 16-17th, with yet another warming trend and another system coming in around the 21st!

As one can see, the topsy-turvey temperature swings of March look to continue with a few storm systems rolling thru from time to time. It doesn't look like any HUGE storm systems look to affect the area in the next 10-14 days, but some activity can continue to be expected. Currently, I do not see any extended periods of above normal temps. nor do I see any 60 degree temps. in our future as of yet.

Stay tuned to the blog, emails, and USA Weather Network Forum for more details!

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