BALTIMORE — Winter is over even though we still sit 8 days away from Spring. It's been a great stretch with two consecutive days in the 70s, but our brief March warm spell has finally come to an end. After high temps in the 70s yesterday (March 10th, 2020) we bottomed out to more seasonable levels today (March 11th, 2020) with more cool air to come.
Cloudy skies, easterly breezes, and pockets of drizzle look to keep our temps in the 50s Thursday before the next warm rebound moves in. Highs climb back to 70 degrees come Friday as a warm front and cold front move through the area. This front will bring a reinforcing shot of showers Friday morning and an early Spring tease before an even bigger cool-down heading into the weekend ahead.
Saturday starts dry with high pressure overhead and high temps topping out in the mid 50s . The high departs late in the day opening the door for more moisture and more cloud cover to settle in. As the high departs we usually talk about warm return flow. Unfortunately though this situation will be the opposite with a strong high pressure system to the north driving cold air south and an incoming trough to the west reinforcing that cold air late Saturday into Sunday. For that reason high temps take a dip into the upper 40s giving us more of a Winter chill compared to that early tease of Spring.
The chill doesn't last for long though as temperatures rebound back into the mid 50s Monday and low 60s Tuesday, More rain though will move in with that warmth which lines up fairly well with the long range 8-14 day trend put out by the Climate Prediction Center for the middle of March. The trend suggest above average temps and precipitation chances in the form of rain over the next several days ahead.
Looking at our current 7 day forecast for verification and we see that pattern lining up nicely as we head into the first few weeks of Spring. The warmer temps spell good news for those on "Bloom Watch" for the Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC. Peak bloom now moved up to March 21st-March 24th. With that said allergy sufferers beware as the long awaited pollen season begins. Stay tuned!!
