Tom

Strat Warming starting to buldge into the upper stratosphere similar to what we had happen back in early February. This could spell a very cold finish to the month of March into the open of April. Edit: Here is the link... www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/temp30anim.shtml This one may be larger than the previous SSW event. Will keep on eye on this over the next week.

Day Light Savings begins tonight as we loose that extra hour of sleep and Spring forward. Sunset tomorrow will now be close to 7:00pm.

Phil Schwartz saying more wintry weather on the way for Tuesday night. I think he may be siding with the NAM model and/or Microcast which brings the storm farther north from the Euro.

I could see a ton of Pneumonia fronts this Spring hampering any warming for areas adjacent to the lake. Similar to what we are seeing today with a NNE wind down the lake. Back door cold fronts will be the tale of the Spring season. ORD has been holding steady in the upper 20's with the wind down the lake while places in S WI are in the low 30's.

LOL, if you trusted NOAA for their winter forecast back in the Fall then you would have had a complete failure of a forecast. NOAA had Equal chances of cold and warm weather for the central/eastern CONUS. Obviously that did not turn out and our region experienced a top 3 record cold and snowy winter.

12z Euro...initial WWA band sends snow but main SLP develops in C MO.

12z Euro showing snow now in IA for mid next week...taking a jog north.

18z GFS...

18z GFS taking on the look what the 12z Euro was showing from what it looks like and developing a SLP in the Plains...

I'd like to see one more big storm to put the icing on the cake for this winter. This storm has a lot of potential and ORD is about 16" away from the all-time record. It would be a far fetch to get that much from 1 storm, however, if this storm phases into a monster and cuts up the lower lakes then we have a good shot.

12z Euro snowfall...I find it hard to believe a deepening system heads East instead of NE. This should correct in future runs unless the HP to the north is to strong.

12z Euro...

Euro def took a jog north and looks healthy...

00z Euro Control....

00z Euro Ensembles agree with a phased system that cuts somewhere up the OV. If this storm amps up, it should become a Great Lakes storms somewhere.

The storm next week has a cutter written all over it on the GGEM ensembles. Will be interesting if the models start honing in on the storm track over the weekend.

Euro is showing 2 distinct pieces of energy....1 piece in the Plains and 1 piece in the Gulf Coast. We need both pieces to merge into 1 main system and this will bomb out into a major storm system. Still lots of time to figure this one out.

This thing is going to be massive storm...991mb SLP N AR @ 132HR. Showing phasing much earlier in the Plains.

00z Euro has a different look this run @ 120HR...

I agree ChicagoToSeattle, that's why I like flying out to AZ sometime towards the end of March and enjoy some of the desert sunshine for a couple months before coming back to Chicago when the warmth settles in. I expect a depressing Spring season this year and I may just extend my stay in AZ this year. I'll never forget March of 2012 when we broke that record streak of 80's! I was out grilling every night...just unreal. We paid for it that summer though with the heat and humidity. I would imagine that this summer will be cool/wet and the below normal pattern to continue. Lake Michigan water temp may not crack 70F this year!

Euro weeklies are in...and survey says....4 more weeks of winter! The reality of it all is, this winter will go down in the books as one of the most long lasting and dominant winter's on record. This winter never really had a major thaw and when it warmed, cold just kept on coming. Obviously this month we will see transitions to warmth more often than not during Dec-Feb but the overall cold trend will out weigh any warm ups in our region.

IowaWx, track this far out is not important. We have seen dynamic systems blow up and trend NW hundreds of miles even 2-3 days out. I like what I'm seeing though.

JB has been saying on Wx Bell about how this storm has similarities to the Super Storm back on March 13, 1993. He's not saying necessarily it will be such a large scale of a system but there are indications of this becoming a major storm. BTW, this storm is hitting around March 13th as well...would be a crazy thing to see this storm repeat!

GFS has taken baby steps each run...looking better with phasing as well.

18z GFS...looks like it runs up the OV