More spring-like than not 

Except for a day or so of a wedge before and after cold front passages the next 7 days are biased mild with some 70 degree readings in my outlook and with chilly air fleeting.

We will be sunshine challenged this week with rather limited amounts any given day, however widespread rain is not expected next 7 days, most of what does occur will be light, sporadic and hit or miss.

The Groundhog said 6 more weeks of winter. It’s been mild since that proclamation.

Hard to get winter with a jet stream configuration like the one we have now and going forward rest of this month. A deep trough of low pressure out West/Southwest and a strong upper-level ridge of high pressure over and off the Southeast United States with the main storm track (baroclinic zone) SW to NE in between:

Any return to any significant or lasting cold will have to wait until the end of this month or more likely sometime in March. Only then can we even THINK about looking for winter precip. Nothing in the foreseeable future but we’ve had it happen before in March and April.

That will require a return of the +PNA (West Coast ridge) and more of a -NAO/-AO (Greenland blocking) and East Coast trough replacing the ridge.

Meanwhile, I am thankful the nature of the fall, winter and current transition toward spring have all gone along with very tepid severe weather:

I marvel at the wonder of mother nature, the universe and the integration of the earth-sun-ocean-atmosphere system and science search for answers. The diagram below charts some of what is under study to better weather and climate prediction. All that complexity and yet it leaves out thousands and thousands of other factors!

No wonder it’s so hard. In 37 years in this profession the one thing I’ve learned is that it is not surprising that our forecasts sometimes are a bust, it is astonishing that we can ever get it right, and that we are in the ballpark or better so often.

Follow me on Twitter @MellishMeterWSB.