80s by Friday, Frost on Tuesday!

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Next after Mardi Gras season: Flu Season with wild temperature swings. So, if you get sick anytime in the next week you can blame it on the weather, not that overindulgent out-of-town relative who came in for the parades, but spread his germs.

Warmer air with more humidity is already blowing back in, but clouds will keep temperatures capped in the mid 70s tomorrow. After that, we’ll see a bit more sun pushing our afternoon temperatures into the low 80s by Friday. A 50-50 chance of showers arrives on Friday ahead of the front. Saturday could feature a few scattered afternoon showers with highs still near 80, but the cold front arrives with showers and storms Saturday evening putting an abrupt end to the warmth.

Sunday will be noticeably colder and windy with temperatures in the 50s for most of the day before briefly touching 60 despite sunshine. Cold winds will continue to blow Sunday night with Monday morning’s lows in the upper 30s. The winds should keep frost from forming. Monday will stay in the 50s and under clear skies temperatures will plummet into the mid 30s with frost in many suburban and rural Northshore locations for Tuesday morning.

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No, that’s not me screaming as the roller coaster drops - it only looks like me. Again, the Foreca graphic overdoes the days with rainfall but generally gets the temperatures right.

I really doubt anyone will see a drop of rain tomorrow or Thursday. Friday’s shower chances look decent, about 50-50 and could happen almost anytime. Amounts will be light, maybe just a tenth of an inch. Saturday’s showers will begin as scattered ones in inland areas (think Franklinton, Bush, Poplarville), then consolidate into a line and move south towards the Lake, Sound, and Southshore by early evening. Again, amounts will be light. This will not be a severe event.

Concerning temperatures….highs near the cooler Sound and Lake will run in the mid 70s this week. Don’t expect a lot of spread on Monday morning’s lows since the winds will keep the atmosphere well mixed. On the other hand, there will be large differences on Tuesday morning with some inland locations 29-31, 34-36 common across most of rural and suburban Northshore locations, and maybe 38-40 with only scattered light frost in protected areas, such as my citrus grove. Then, I expect a faster recovery in temperatures than the Foreca graph shows.

Why the cold air outbreak and why the challenge in forecasting the temperatures? This is the NWS forecast map for Sunday morning. The cold front is well south of us and a developing low off the Carolinas. Though models started showing this on Friday , the depth, speed, and track of the Carolina low on Sunday and Monday will govern how much cold air gets pumped south. The European model, which has been struggling lately, moves the low further out to sea while all the other models really slow and deepen the low as it hugs the coast slowly moving northward. This pushes the low level cold air southward on its west. My forecast reflects the model consensus without the European. It could be an epic storm for DELMARVA and New Jersey.

Expect highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s for Thursday March 26- Monday March 2 with partly cloudy skies and little precipitation. Nice!

It’s funny how the atmosphere and oceans drop bread crumbs to help forecast some long-range issues, but not others. Case in point: Ocean temperature observations from the Tropical Pacific as well as all models point to an emerging strong El Nino. This means a warm Eastern Pacific and strong wind shear over the Caribbean which should limit the number of tropical storms and hurricanes this summer. Of course limit does not mean zero, and we’ll give you a more precise outlook by May. But it’s amazing that a major clue is already emerging since many seasons are much more of an enigma this far out.

On the other hand, ask me if next Tuesday will be the last frost of the year and I haven’t a clue. The atmosphere will calm down for several weeks after the anticipated Big East Coast blizzard transfers much energy. This means no big storms to push cold air south. However, after that, ???