Early Spring Weather

As I have said in the past, spring is a war between winter and summer.  Winter wins some battles, but summer always wins the war.  The past couple of weeks have definitely felt more winter-like.  But summer is about to make a short visit to our area.

First, winter will have a couple more victories.  After the rain this Friday afternoon/evening, we'll have a dry day on Saturday, with a possible light afternoon shower.  The wind will be breezy in the afternoon, but not to the level of the past couple of days.

Then we're looking yet another chance of spring snow on Sunday morning.  Not a slam dunk that it will accumulate on the ground, but the timing for it looks good.  In any event, any accumulation would be very light and won't last through the day.  But it will be another cold day with temperatures only in the mid 40s.

As we talked about in the previous blog, temperatures will make a rapid warm up during the first part of next week.  60s are guaranteed for Tuesday and Wednesday, and a high of 70F on Wednesday isn't impossible, especially in Spokane and the Basin.  Here's the ECMWF forecast high for Wednesday (compliments of PivotalWeather).


Now the AI (Artificial Intelligence) version of the ECMWF isn't quite as excited about the temperatures on Wednesday.  (Yes, AI is now starting to be used in weather prediction).   Either way, it's going to feel rather mild compared to the 40s we've had the past several days.


But this warm up will be short lived.  A strong cold front will march through the region on Wednesday night.  How warm we get on Wednesday will largely depend on the timing of the cold front.

The interesting part is that the orientation of this front, coupled with the warm temperature, could bring us our first spring thunderstorms.  March is typically too early for this, but things are coming together to at least open the possibility.  We're not talking anything strong or damaging.  Here's the ECMWF lightning strike probability for Wednesday evening:


Now you may look at that and say to yourself "Ha, that shows lightning in the Basin, not northeast Washington."  Don't get too hung up about the location details just yet.  Previous runs of the ECMWF have shown more lightning over Spokane, or the Palouse.  Suffice to say, some folks in eastern Washington or north Idaho could hear some thunder Wednesday afternoon or evening.

After that, the cold air mass behind the cold front just takes up residence over the Northwest and off shore for the next 10 or so.  Yes, you read that right.  More cool and showery weather.  Highs will generally be in the 50s for the 27th through at least April 5th, with a chance of showers each day. Note: I'm not saying it's going to rain every day.   And truth be told, highs in the 50s with a chance of showers is right around average for this time of year.

Just for fun, here's the ECMWF forecast for April 5th.  This is a 15 day forecast, so don't put too much faith in it.  But notice how the only location with below-normal temperatures is our neck of the woods.  Just about everywhere else on the continent will see near or above normal temperatures.





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