March coming in like a lion

After a fairly benign February, the month of March looks like it will come in like a gentle lion (if there is such a thing). You have to think it could be worse and we have definitely seen worse.

We do know the first 10 days of March look wet! Basically, from the southern Plains to the upper Midwest, a series of large-scale systems out of the West could keep things pretty soggy. I guess not EVERYONE needs rain, according to this email we received from a viewer on February 26th:

I do think the majority of our March moisture (overall) is weighted toward the beginning of the month, with repeated systems arriving from the West or Southwest. We're even looking at some risk of stronger thunderstorms across the southern Plains and into the mid-Mississippi River Valley. I don't think Kansas will have much of a severe weather threat at this stage.

There's reason to be concerned about a heavy, wet snow in March, but I don't think we'll see much of that in Kansas (might be a concern west and north of our immediate area). Below is the March rainfall outlook for the 31 day period - favoring the eastern half of Kansas to be wetter, with western Kansas still getting some rain, but not likely to be wetter than average (which is typically about 1-2" of rain)

The pattern should calm down some by mid-March and into the second half of the month. It wouldn't be a total surprise to see high pressure returning to the west of the Rockies, which would bring about some drier trends in the 3rd week of the month. However, we should keep a watch on late March as more active weather could be returning out of the West. Most models seem to hint at the pattern reloading again after the 23rd. Of course, that late in the month, one might anticipate the threat of severe storms increasing

We've had one heck of a run on warm weather this winter. In fact, this reaches the top 10 warmest winters on record (top 5 for western Kansas), so we probably won't soon forget this one. I think we had about 2-3 weeks of "cold" overall, and I'd be surprised if this month of March is anything out of the ordinary. 

Right now, the data tells us to expect a seasonal month - likely to close to the average. There are still some chilly days ahead, but they'll more than likely be limited in duration.