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March out like a lamb, April starts out quiet

The final day of March remains cool, but some nice warmth returns next week! Here’s just how warm we’ll get.
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The final day of March will be quiet and even warmer, too, as we close out a fairly active month that continues to revolve around flooding.

For the month of March in the Quad Cities:
Rainfall: 2.13″ (-0.63″) compared to normal   \   Snowfall: 2.1″ (-1.8″) compared to normal.

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We’ll see some minor improvement in temperatures for Sunday with highs returning to the upper 40s thanks mostly in part to increased sunshine. Even warmer conditions will arrive for the first day of April as a south wind kicks in and boosts our highs well into the 50s.

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The long range pattern continues to signal that more warmth will lie ahead for at least the first two weeks of April while the overall pattern remains fairly dry, which is great news for our rivers that continue to experience major flooding.  The only chance for rain in the next week won’t arrive until Thursday, and even with this system, things look fairly light.

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The Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a nearly 60 percent chance of seeing above-average temperatures through April 9th. Average temperatures in that time frame reach into the upper 50s and lower 60s. Temperatures are forecast to be well into the 60s by the second half of next week. This warmth will overspread much of the country from coast to coast, and more importantly, move far enough to the north that it will likely melt much of the remaining snowpack that sits across Wisconsin and Minnesota. This will continue to cause big problems for the Mississippi River in the coming weeks with another crest expected around April 8th. Depending on how much precipitation we see in the coming weeks, river flooding could extend all the way into May.

Meteorologist Andrew Stutzke

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