BLOG: Winter's Last Stand??

Happy Sunday all,I am back from vacation and ready to talk warmth! But sadly....I have to talk about cold and snow. We are in the home stretch of March but it sure looks and feels like February today. Late-morning radar/satellite and temperatures tell the story: Nationwide, it's very cold for a late-March day....with the exception of the Southwest and Deep South: Aside from the cold, the weather looks uneventful through Monday night across the region. On Tuesday, a strong Alberta Clipper-type system will cruise through the Ohio Valley on it's way to the East Coast. Here's the midday Tuesday map: Yes, it will snow lightly at times on Tuesday, but given that it's going to be light, it's coming during the day, and it's late-March....I would not expect too many problems with this. Some coatings on non-paved surfaces look possible. Someone might even get an inch on their grass. This will be a bigger deal Tuesday into Tuesday night in the high elevations south and east of Pittsburgh: Notice another "bullseye" closer to the East Coast. This storm will rapidly strengthen offshore and may give coastal areas (especially in New England) a whopper of a wind and snow event. Yuck: European model snow prediction is wicked for Boston and Cape Cod: As for us, there are growing signs that this cold stretch (with some snow to boot) is likely to be Winter's Last Stand. Not to say it won't be cold at times in April...and we can even have the occasional snow. But this type of SUSTAINED cold, as much as 20 degrees below average at times, is not likely after the next few days. In other words, Spring is going to start winning a lot more of these battles.Relief comes late this week. Here's the current cold surge of air: A re-enforcing shot Tuesday/Wednesday: Then...ahhhh, Thursday and Friday bring a pattern change: A brief cooldown is likely to be followed by a couple of days of mild weather as we exit March: Is this a WARM pattern we are heading into??? No, I would not say that. I don't see a nice, long stretch of above-average temperatures coming anytime soon. What we are heading into is classic early Spring in Northeast Ohio: lots of back and forth, some mild days, some chilly days.....but probably not many EXTREMES on either end for a while. While it stinks that we likely won't see an early-season 80 anytime soon, after we get through the cold early this week we are likely to be done with days where the high does not get above freezing.I'll be back full force with social media postings, "Weather For Weather Geeks", and of course the TV forecast at 6&11 on Monday. See ya then!Eric