Luke Victor

Hey all, the weather has been really quiet lately, and as such, there hasn't
been a whole bunch to update you on. To start things off, this week has been an
absolute treat! Winds have died down and we've warmed up quite a bit! 

Responsible for that, is this thing below:

A significant fold in the jet pattern, setting up a nice ridge of high pressure
along the Canadian Rockies, stretch down into the western high plains. That
ridge hanging out around 18,000 ft aloft trickles down to our weather here at
the surface. Many locations are running 10-20 degrees above normal from Kansas
to California here on Wednesday.

This will be the predominant weather pattern going forward to Saturday, March
29th, before the first, of what will likely be several cold front in the first
two weeks of April. 

I put together a GIF below showing the general weather pattern over the next
10-15 days. The warmth is clearly visible in the first half, with potential for
multiple storm systems between April 1 to April 10. There's been a particularly
interesting signal between April 6-10 that's had my eye for a little while now. 

Whether or not we actually see temperatures run 30-40 degrees below normal, 
likely to go along with some snow? That remains to be seen...

This idea lines up pretty well with some of the MJO data. We've talked about
these plots a few times before. Every time those yellow lines (let's just call
em spaghetti) begin to congregate around zone 7 & 8, it means a higher
likelihood of troughing/storminess in the western half of the United States. 

Given the signal is a little fuzzy (the black line, averaging all the data
together doesn't have a very clear direction), it's hard to put a ton of stock
into this being a huge key player.

One of our best tools to analyze this pattern change for early April will be the
500mb European Ensemble. There is a very clear signal of significant and
persistent troughing after March 30th. 

Total precip departures from average look good too... A nice stripe of above
normal precip extending from central Utah, all the way east to the Great Lakes.

This type of pattern likely yield a some quick moving systems that bring smaller
amounts of moisture, with 1... MAYBE 2? bigger systems that bring higher impact
rain and snowfall to the front range.

Definitely a type of pattern we'll have to watch closely! After an
underperforming March in many cases, April can still be a really big month
around here. You'll be seeing more frequent updates from us coming soon...

Luke

Weather5280 Insider: Warm end to March, active first half of April?

Denver, CO