About one month before the start of spring is the most well-known meteorological holiday of the year: Groundhog Day. Punxsutawney Phil declared six more weeks of winter after seeing his shadow on Thursday morning, but what do the meteorologists say?
Meteorological spring is right around the corner with the season kicking off on the first day of March, but for some areas of the country, the new season will bring more of the same with cold air, chances of snow and far-reaching winter storms.
There will still be winterlike conditions to contend with across the United States, AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said. “The AccuWeather long-range team is concerned about a surge of cold and wintry weather right near the official start of spring. Before then, it may feel like spring at times, particularly across the Southeast and mid-Atlantic.”
AccuWeather is not only calling for more waves of cold air throughout the spring but also the opportunity for snowstorms, severe weather outbreaks and previews of summer.
Spring snow to blanket Northeast, Midwest
Winter has been a rollercoaster ride across the Midwest and Northeast that started with a blast of record-challenging cold right after the December solstice followed by spells of warm weather in January that made it feel more like April. A few mild days in February could make it feel like spring across the eastern U.S., but AccuWeather long-range forecasters say that winter coats and snow shovels may still be needed periodically after the first day of spring.
“Don’t be fooled. There’s still some winter left this season that may last into spring, and we could be talking about snow in March,” Pastelok said. “And we may even see a little bit of snow in the Northeast in April.”
Around the same time that meteorological spring begins, the polar vortex could shift again, similar to late January, sending a blast of bitterly cold air from the Arctic southward into the contiguous U.S. With cold air entrenched over the Midwest and Northeast, it will spawn the potential for some springtime snowfall.
Severe weather to jolt Gulf Coast and Southern Plains
The start of 2023 has been hyperactive in terms of severe weather with 164 preliminary tornado reports in January, the second-highest on record for the month. The stormy start to the year is a preview of what’s to come as the spring severe weather season arrives.
Severe weather could ramp up quickly in March with the potential for multiple outbreaks from the Gulf Coast to the Plains and potentially parts of the Midwest. However, the number of twisters is likely to be lower than last March when 233 tornadoes were reported throughout the month. The frequency of thunderstorms and tornadoes is not expected to keep up at this pace throughout the entire spring, providing a break to storm-weary areas of the central and southern U.S.
Similar to last year, the worst of the severe weather is expected to occur outside of the traditional Tornado Alley, which stretches from Texas through South Dakota. One of the driving factors behind this is the long-term drought across the region. “Drought last year put a lid on a lot of the severe weather for a while during the spring,” Pastelok said. This was especially true in the High Plains where the most severe drought conditions were present.
Drought is still ongoing in the Plains, but a different weather pattern this spring will bring more opportunities for thunderstorms to Tornado Alley, which can lead to small improvements in the drought. Even though springtime thunderstorms will deliver much-needed rain, the drought is likely to persist into the summer. “There may be some lulls where we don’t have a whole lot of severe weather in the Ohio Valley and the Tennessee Valley, especially the middle part of the spring,” Pastelok explained.
The Northern Plains could see Flooding
Farther north, the primary weather risk throughout the spring could be flooding rather than severe weather.
An abundance of snow has blanketed the northern Plains and Upper Midwest throughout the winter, including in Minneapolis where over 55 inches of snow accumulated through the end of January. Typically, only 30 inches of powder piles up in the Twin Cities by the start of February.
The widespread snowpack will limit the severe weather potential throughout the first half of the spring. As the snow melts, it will feed into the Red River watershed, increasing the risk of flooding along the river and its tributaries into the start of summer.
Melting snow can also help to boost water levels on the Mississippi River. During the second half of 2022, the Mississippi River water levels were near record low levels, which impacted barge traffic and revealed ancient artifacts that were submerged for over a century. Water levels have risen in the middle and lower part of the basin since autumn following stormy weather.
More heavy rain events are expected from the Gulf Coast to the Ohio Valley throughout the spring which will continue to fill the Mississippi River, as well as raise the risk of flooding throughout the spring.
More Drought relief for the Western Region
A barrage of storms pummeled the West Coast from late December through the first half of January, making significant headway in the drought across California — and more drought relief could be coming to the West Coast as spring arrives. “Things are looking pretty good right now. The drought has eased back a little bit,” Pastelok said.
On the five-point scale used by the U.S. Drought Monitor, extreme and exceptional drought are the two worst classifications. Since the start of December, the exceptional drought has been all but erased across the West, and the areas facing extreme drought have been significantly reduced.
More storms are possible through the end of winter and into the spring for California, but most of the storms that flow from the Pacific to the U.S. are likely to focus on the Pacific Northwest. However, despite the improvement in the widespread drought conditions throughout the winter, the drought is far from over, and water restrictions could continue throughout most of 2023.
It’s not just California where drought conditions improved but also the Colorado River basin which feeds into Lake Powell along the border of north-central Arizona and south-central Utah and Lake Mead along the border of western Arizona and southeastern Nevada. “There is good snowpack in the mountains,” Pastelok said. “I think that it will benefit Lake Mead and the other reservoirs in that region.”
The snowmelt throughout the spring will be far from enough to fill Lake Mead and Lake Powell, but it will be a big step in the right direction. It will take several more stormy winters to erase the widespread drought in the West and to replenish water levels in crucial reservoirs across the region.
Pastelok added that there could even be some chances of rain in California in April and May. If this occurs, it will heighten the risk of flooding as rain paired with rapid snowmelt from the mountains could cause rivers to swell.
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