Weather It Is (The Calm)

Good Afternoon:

The weather is certainly nice. In fact, it is a mild 19 C with 33 percent humidity, and 10 km/h winds.

The weather will certainly stay nice through Wednesday, slide down a bit on Thursday, poke up about Shabbat, and then slide down again next week. The warm, springlike weather is a result of a weak ridge of high pressure over our area ahead of a developing low pressure system over western Europe.

The latest forecast from the Global Forecast Systems model (GFS) shows a strong ridge eventually building up into western Europe, with its center moving just north of England.  The combined northerly growing ridge and the low pressure will help to build an eastern Mediterranean very elongated, north to south trough.

One might say coincidentally, but one should be careful when using this word -- that the development of the trough will facilitate the flow of cold air southward.   Yet, he severity of the cold air streaming southward is something more reminiscent of January or February, but rarely of March.

The GFS shows a rather large and menacing storm impacting our area about 10 days out.

Yet, the GFS ensemble suggests far less certainty in the forecast.

Even so -- as promised in the last blog -- we have a very high probability of sliding back into a wet and cold pattern mid-month and the week afterwards, while one might peg the probability of a late March snow at about 15%.

Of course, if the GFS were THE model (of record), this might be an open and shut case -- or the calm before the storm.

Barry Lynn