Spring Sting

Wednesday 9 a.m.

Last year at this time, a walk into a Great Lakes or Northeast garden could be met with an early season bee sting, and the first mosquitoes had appeared. This year, the main sting is the wind, and fairly often, snow and sleet. The blocking pattern that has repeatedly renewed the cold shows no sign of breaking down, and computer models that extend into April show no definitive change even then. This video has more.

One fascinating topic this morning is the discussion of snow possibilities for this weekend in the Plains and Midwest and what happens when the storm gets to the East Coast. The map below shows the solutions from last night's (1) US model, GFS, and (2) the European model, ECMWF, when the storm passes nearest to Chicago. The same issues of how far north or south the track will be will help determine who get snow, who gets rain and who gets both between D.C. and Boston.