Mar 23, 2012; 9:46 AM ET
Friday, 11:30 a.m.
The big weather story for much of the past two weeks has been the incredible warmth. It would take far too much time and space to list all of the records that have been tied, broken, re-broken, obliterated, and flat-out incinerated. I've been reading a few of the National Weather Service summaries on this incredible heat, and it is just flat-out unprecedented.
In 140 years of record-keeping in Chicago, it has reached or exceeded 80 just 10 times. Until this year. Since March 14, it has happened eight times in nine days, with the one day that it didn't make it a lowly 78 for a high.
Detroit has hit 70 or better nine days in a row. The last time such a streak occurred in early spring was a few years ago. Quite a few... as in 1886. And that from March 16 through 24. Of April, not March.
When it hit 76 in Bangor, Maine, on Sunday, it marked the earliest 70-degree reading on record there. That, obviously, was a record, as was the 68 on Monday and the 78 on Tuesday. Then they ramped it up a bit and soared to 83 Wednesday. And topped that at 84 yesterday, setting a new standard for record heat in the month of March. The previous earliest first day of 80-degree warmth there was April 11.
And I could go on and on and on, but I'll let you search around to find some of the great weather stories in this heat, as it would just eat up more time.
It isn't this warm everywhere, In fact, Fairbanks, Alaska, is off to their third coldest start to the month of March in the last 40 years. Anchorage is 7.4 degrees below normal so far this month, and if they manage to eke out 3.7 inches of snow in the next 24 hours, it would establish a new all-time seasonal snowfall record for the city.
Cold air actually covers much of northern and western Canada, as well as northeastern Canada. I look at the weather maps up there every day, and I see a large high pressure area in place across the Northwest Territories this morning. That high will be heard from early next week, and it means some kind of trouble for parts of the northern and eastern Great Lakes and New England down into parts of the mid-Atlantic where it has been so extremely warm in recent days.
Look at the Canadian ensemble forecast for Monday morning:
The upper-level low that is now exiting the Plains and getting ready to cross the Mississippi Valley will be off the East coast by Monday morning, as you can see from that image above. Not far behind it an upper-level trough embedded in the main flow of the stream will streak into the Northeast and into the weakness left behind by the departing upper-level trough. That will allow the colder air to be released into the pattern later and Monday night and could lead to some real problems with frost and freezes. Here's the forecast weather map:
And here's the projected freeze line Tuesday morning:
With the high farther east Tuesday night, frost is possible over the interior mid-Atlantic and most of interior New England, endangering trees and flowers in early bloom. This is not a good situation!
Behind this chill, the warmth will quickly reassert itself over the Rockies and Plains this weekend and early next week. Here is the GFS ensemble forecast for Tuesday:
The problem is that little of that incredible warmth ever gets to the Northeast. The storm coming into the Great Lakes Wednesday will be forced to slide east-southeastward thereafter, denying much of upstate New York and New England access to anything close to that kind of warmth. As a result, the overall seven-day means for next week shift the heat farther west and cool it off noticeably across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states:
Overall, the record warmth is probably not done, though it will be history after today for the Great Lakes to the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. In fact, in many of those places, it may not get that warm again for two or three months!
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