Spring is in the Air

Now that spring is finally here (meteorologically though not astronomically), WHEN IS IT GOING TO WARM UP!!! If you're like me, you're probably quite sick of this cold, miserable winter we have had, thanks to a largely negative Arctic Oscillation, but forecasts from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC), are beginning to show we could be moving away from this negative trend. This trend will produce warmer conditions (or is that just spring?).

The GFS is developing what I consider to be the first "spring-like" weather system over the high plains on Monday. You can see from the image below, that a 996 mb low causes decent warm air advection inland across Texas and into southwestern Oklahoma. There is a slight possibility of a few severe thunderstorms, but due to limited moisture, I don't expect anything significant, maybe a few severe reports at best.

So how long until severe weather season really cranks up? Well if you look at the 00z March 7 run of the GFS (http://hoot.metr.ou.edu/models/gfs/surf/dewp), it looks like it could be a while. Dry air spills into the plains following the storm system forecast to pass through this week with the 60 F dew point line moving very far south. Also, if you look at the sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico (10 C is about 50 F, 15 C is about 59 F, 20 C is about 68 F, and 25 C is about 77 F), the Gulf waters are quite cool (though interestingly, you can make out the loop current in the southeast Gulf of Mexico), this means there is not very much heat content in the Gulf, which will limit warm air and moisture advection, a key ingredient for severe weather development. Looking at this, we are probably in for a quiet start of severe weather season.

So what do I predict? I am predicting a slow warming of temperatures across the United States, but slower than normal because of the lack of heat content over the Gulf of Mexico and a negative, but becoming more positive, Arctic Oscillation.

This is my first "serious" discussion about weather and climate and I'm running on only one and a half semesters of actual meteorology courses (though I have been studying the weather for quite some time), so if you have questions or comments, feel free to leave your comments, but please don't be to harsh on me! Just point out any errors (kindly) if you feel something is incorrect.