Searching For Spring...It's Almost Here For Good!

Hello this is Junior Meteorologist Kyle Elliott with a weather pattern discussion...and I want to start by apologizing for the lack in posts over the last week to ten days. I came down with another one of the viruses that are going around this winter, and this time I happened to be one of the lucky ones who got walking pneumonia. Obviously, I am being facetious when I say lucky as that's one of the worst viruses going around...and I'm on a course of antibiotics to hopefully get rid of the pneumonia as the doc says it's bacterial. So hopefully I'll be back to my more frequent posting schedule soon now as spring is right around the corner. Speaking of spring, let's get on to the weather. Obviously, cold air is gripping the Eastern part of the country again after a 4-5 day warm spell about 10 days ago. This cold shot is the one I mentioned in my post about eight days ago...and I'm glad I stuck with my gut that winter would deliver us one more cold blow before spring fully took over the eastern half of the nation. Anyways, a storm system will dive southeastward from the Dakotas over the next 2-3 days and spread a swath of snow from South Dakota eastward through southern suburbs of Chicago into Cleveland and Detroit. A general 3-5 inches can fall in that area with locally higher amounts before the storm races up into the northeast and gains some moisture from the Atlantic Ocean. In between from D.C. to Philly to NYC, the snow will fizzle out coming east of the mountains as a heavy band of precipitation located over the Appalachians Saturday evening will just collapse as the nighttime hours wear on. The heaviest snow will skip the area east of the Appalachians and basically jump to northern New England and coastal areas from southeastern NH to northern Maine. There, upwards of 7-11 inches can fall in some places, while the I-95 corridor and Piedmont region from western MA to eastern MD see only coatings to an inch or two in most places. There, of course, is still some model discrepancies with this storm, so the exact path of the storm is not set. Given the course of the winter, though, I would have to say that models pretty much have this nailed. After that storm departs, another bitterly cold airmass will settle into the eastern part of the country for about two or three days before winter finally...FINALLY...ends for good. By the end of next week, the last arctic high will move out into the Atlantic Ocean as the clockwise flow around it brings a southwest flow into the eastern half of the country. Granted, March is wild and big snowstorms can occur...but I think that any cold shots in March will only be the normal 1-2 day cold blast followed by quick warm-ups. So my thinking is that any extended cold period where temperatures hover in the 20s and 30s for highs north of the PA/MD border will end by this coming Wednesday or Thursday. So warm-weather lovers, rejoice as in another 5 days, winter will probably be fleeing the scene very quickly. And after that, the models only show warmth during at least the 1st week in March. In fact, if the 18z GFS model from tonight is right, 50s will push the entire way up to New England by about March 5th as 70 degree readings abound anywhere from Baltimore to St. Louis southward. Obviously, that will probably change by the time March 5th roles around, but my point is that winter is quickly ending starting with a warm-up in the Plains by Monday or Tuesday. So that's about all I have for now, but I will try to post more frequently in the days ahead. At any rate, hope ya'll have a great rest of your evening and I'll hopefully talk to ya'll again soon! This is Junior Meteorologist (Storm Tracker) Kyle Elliott reporting for the AKStormtracker Forecasting Center!