More Than Just A Taste Of Spring This Go Around...

Hello this is Junior Meteorologist Kyle Elliott with a weather pattern discussion...and I want to start off by doing a quick recap of the snowstorm that affected the area about 3 days ago. Believe me, this storm was one of many surprises but which left the majority of snow-starved folks satisfied this winter as you might say winter was "saved" by this last burst of winter cold and snow. As ya'll might remember, I made a snowfall map of where snow could fall out of that storm, and the map turned out to be nearly 85-90 percent accurate. The only error I made was NH, VT, and northern Maine...but considering the coverage of the storm, that was only about 10% of the forecasted area. I know and apologize that I did not post a day before or during the storm...but after a long, miserable winter of forecasting, I really did not feel like posting an actual snowfall accumulation map as frankly I'm worn out and tired of winter. So instead of going crazy with the storm, I decided to just let it run its course as I sat back and enjoyed my 5 inches of snowfall I received here in York, PA. There are one or two things I want to touch on with the storm, though. First, the western edge of the snowfall was very sharp...and my county was actually one of those counties which divided heavy snow from very little snow. For example, Dillsburg, PA...just about 12-15 miles to my northwest...walked away with no more than 1-2 inches from the storm...and the far northwestern part of my county just before Carlisle had a mere half of an inch of snowfall. From about a line from Manchester to Dover to Hanover and eastward, though, the heaviest snowfall of the season occurred for many as I saw 5 inches of snow here in central York County and some folks on the east and south sides saw upwards of 7 inches of snowfall. That was one unique aspect of the storm. The other was the extremely high snowfall ratios which occurred with the upper level storm on Monday morning as places affected were in the teens during that snowfall. For many places along I-95, 9-12 inches of snow fell as that corridor actually turned out to be the jackpot. For the first time this winter, precipitation fell as 95-100 percent snow...and that is the other unique aspect of the storm seeing as this storm, the coldest of the winter, occurred far away from the coldest time of the year in January. But as I like to say, when it snows in March, get ready for the blow torch as the snow never sticks around very long. As ya'll have probably noticed, today...just 3 days after the storm...temperatures broke into the 40s and in some cases 50s from I-80 southward, melting 80% of the snow in my neighborhood already. In just 3 shorts days...the grass to snow ratio is now 4:1...whereas 2 days ago it was the 0:4. As the sun angle increases and the sun gets stronger day by day, the temperatures are bound to increase as will be the case in the next several days. Today was just the first of the "warm" days as tomorrow will see highs in the 50s across the eastern half of PA and 60s further west and south. Saturday will be even warmer with highs in the 60s as far north as I-80 in Pennsylvania and 70 around Washington, D.C. Sunday and Monday should be warmer still as both days could see a 70 degree reading as far north as Harrisburg, PA, and 80 possibly as far north as the Washington, D.C., southern suburbs. As you can see, warm weather will dominate for the next several days over the Mid-Atlantic, and the snow that fell 3 days ago will be a distant memory for everybody by the time tomorrow has ended. I must warn ya'll, though, that there will probably one last chilly shot of air around March 13th-16th as winter sticks its ugly nose in one last time...but believe me, from here on out, the days below 50 degrees will be few and far between. Well, that's about all I have time for for now, so hope ya'll have a great night and I'll talk to ya'll soon! This is Junior Meteorologist (Storm Tracker) Kyle Elliott reporting for the AKStormtracker Forecasting Center!