by Ted Keller
March 2010 Climate Summary for the Ozarks
10:25 am in Monthly Review by Ted Keller
The month started uneventful and once again chilly for the season. But a pattern shift was occurring that would shut down the cold air express for at least the beginning of the month. The temperature was able to rise to above fifty again by the 4th and stayed above that mark through the weekend of the 6-7th.
The pattern shift that was underway featured a longwave trough with several shortwaves rotating around it starting on Monday the 8th. This pumped warm air up into the Ozarks the 8-10th. We reached a high of 76 degrees on Wednesday the 9th. This pattern also brought about several minor chances for severe storms in the Ozarks, the only one to materialize was on the same day as the warmth. A few severe storm warnings resulted and even a few radar indicated tornado warnings were hoisted for McDonald county northward through Newton and Jasper.
The Ozarks then slipped ino a cold funk! The next seven days saw highs only in the forties with 45 degrees recorded three days in a row and one day, the 13th, were the high only reached 42.
Hints that the weekend of the 20/21st might actually have snow started to show up almost a week before it actually did snow. The anomalous weather system which produced the winter precipitation was a strong cut-off low. Ultimately, the storm dump good quantities of snow in the western Ozarks with a mixture of rain, sleet, ice and snow in a narrow band and all rain in eastern sections of the viewing area. My blog on that storm can be found here with the NWS summary of the snow here.
More moderation kicked in after this storm including another seventy-degree day on the 23rd. Two moderate cyclones affected the area, one late Wednesday and into Thursday the 25th and another on Saturday the 27th.
The storm on the 25th dumped its heaviest rain over extreme southwestern and southern Missouri where 2″ plus totals were common.
The month ended on a warm and dry note. In fact, the high on the 31st reached 84, the first eighty-degree day since September 27 of 2009. High winds and low humidity also caused a red flag warnings to be posted into the beginning of April.
