Feb 27, 2009Spring Will Come Reluctantly To Eastern U.S.
It will be a reluctant spring in areas that have had the hardest winter,” according to AccuWeather.com’s chief long-range forecaster and senior meteorologist Joe Bastardi.
More winter weather is on the way for the Northeast, as a negative North Atlantic Oscillation Pattern (NOA) is “notorious this time of year,” according to the forecaster, based in College Park, Pa. A negative NAO leads to storminess along the Eastern Seaboard, he said.
He predicted that March and April will be colder than normal, but by May the weather will warm to above normal across much of the country, as true spring finally starts.
He added that several temporary warm-ups would happen for the East Coast in the next few weeks.
“Each warm surge that we see in the next couple of weeks won’t be the true end of winter,” he said.
It will be an early spring for western Texas into Arizona and the southern Rockies.
As for the mid-Atlantic, the region does not average much snow, and Washington, D.C., has had a relatively snow-less winter, he said.
“We did predict slightly below-normal snowfall for D.C.”
However, Bastardi does not rule out the possibility of one or two storms to hit the mid-Atlantic before the end of the winter weather season.
The West and southern Plains have suffered from a lack of rainfall, but he is optimistic that the regions will have relief in April and May. The Southeast will most likely have a dry pattern for much of spring, which could cause problems for crops.
The Midwest from Minnesota to Chicago and the Northeast from Boston to Youngstown, Ohio, have had the worst of winter so far due to a persistent storm track that has changed very little all winter.
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