WEATHERAmerica Newsletter, Saturday, April 1, 2023 at 10:50 PM CT; Near Term Forecast

[Larry Cosgrove]

SHORT RANGE OUTLOOK

(Through The Next 72 Hours)

 

The West Deals With More Chills And Storms....

METEOBLUE

UQAM Meteocentre (3)

TwisterData.Com (3)

University Of Wisconsin Weather Server (3)

College Of DuPage Weather Laboratory (2)

All during the preceding winter, the prevailing pattern of coldest and stormiest conditions stayed over the western states, the Upper Midwest, and southern Canada. The same alignment remained in March, but with a notable difference: the larger storms survived the passage across the Continental Divide and went on to produce a wide array of extreme weather across the entire U.S. The next such disturbance looks even stronger than the past two, and likely will spread heavy snowfall across the Intermountain Region (although mostly at higher elevations), the Black Hills, and along or just above the Canadian border. Impacts on California may be more limited as the track of the surface low pressure may be somewhat further north than previous such systems. But the colder air will remain in place to the left of the Rocky Mountains.

Temporarily Warmer/Calmer Across Eastern Two-Thirds Of The U.S., But MCS Threat Building In Texas 

METEOBLUE

PivotalWeather.Com (3)

ECMWF

I stress  the word "temporarily" here, since I will state that there will be a monster synoptic-scale storm moving through the eastern two-thirds of the continent April 4-6. There may be an MCS formation in Texas on Sunday, and I would not be surprised, given climatology for such events and some numerical model support, for the thunderstorm grouping to be somewhat larger and further southward. The push of hot and dry air out of Mexico is a concern, since a flow axis like that shown on the RGEM and NAM versions is highly supportive of large hail as well as a few tornadoes in the gap between Interstates 10 and 20. Heavy rainfall and microbursts are probable as well, and people living in SE OK....C, E TX....LA....S AR should pay close attention to local advisories about intense convection.

Warmer temperatures will fill in across the Great Plains to the East Coast during the following three days, which will worsen conditions when the storm tracking out of the West makes a rapid move into the Heartland by Wednesday morning.