Ag Weather Forum

Like a big spring storm system that hit the United States last week, another is headed for the country later this week. With strong winds, heavy snow, potential blizzard conditions, freezing rain, and severe storms, this is another storm that should spread multiple impacts throughout the country.

This one is being labeled differently than the one last week though. Meteorologists have already used the term "bomb cyclone" to refer to the rapidly intensifying low-pressure center expected to move from the Rockies into the Central Plains on March 14. Bomb cyclones are rare when defined by a drop in pressure of 24 millibars (mb) over a 24-hour period at 60 degrees latitude, or 14 mb over a 24-hour period at 30 degrees latitude. With the low occurring closer to 40 degrees latitude in northeast Colorado on March 14, a drop of approximately 18 mb would suffice. Given that definition, the actual drop in pressure being forecast by recent runs of the European ECMWF and American GFS models are somewhere in the range of 20-25 mb depending on the run.

The low-pressure center is forecast to move from the Central Plains northeast through the Upper Midwest for March 15, then into Hudson Bay on March 16. The cold front to the system will sweep across the country during the weekend, moving to the East Coast on Sunday night before exiting offshore early March 17. Before getting into the Plains, the system will have already brought widespread precipitation and strong winds to the West, including areas of heavy mountain snow, on March 12-13. But once in the Plains, the system will make for much more hazardous conditions.

Rapidly intensifying systems are known to cause many weather issues, but the main concern is usually high winds. In fact, when also including the downsloping off the Rockies and into the Southern Plains, wind gusts may peak above 70 miles per hour across Texas. Strong winds will continue through the weekend, following the system east across the country. Though winds may only be in the 40-50 mph range for those across the Midwest, it will likely coincide with potential for heavy snow and freezing rain across the eastern Dakotas and Minnesota.

It was very warm this week, but what makes the system deepen so rapidly will be the extreme difference in temperatures. Enough cold air will be ingested into the system to produce bands and clusters of heavy snow on the northwest side of the low track but will probably wait until Friday night to materialize. Starting off as rain and transitioning to snow could make for some period of freezing rain in these areas as well. With the winds howling around, extra damage may occur from the ice and wet snow -- blizzard conditions may develop as the precipitation finally makes it over to all snow on Saturday.

To the south, several more rounds of severe weather are currently being forecast by the Storm Prediction Center. Areas near the Mississippi River are the focus on Friday, with that shifting to the eastern Midwest down to the Gulf of Mexico for Saturday, and along the East Coast for Sunday. All hazards will be possible, but strong winds and tornadoes will be the main threats. Those outlooks will continue to be updated and can be found here: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/….

To go along with the threat of thunderstorms, heavy rain will be possible across the Gulf Coast and Mid-South, areas that have dealt with flooding recently and could have issues with more flooding.

To find more weather conditions and your local forecast from DTN, head over to https://www.dtnpf.com/….

John Baranick can be reached at john.baranick@dtn.com

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