Chris's Corner - Valentine's Day Winter Storm

For Tuesday February 23 - Monday March 01: Recovery from the outbreak of Arctic air experienced by much of the country during early to mid February looks to be well underway as Week-2 begins. Forecast minimum and maximum temperature anomalies on the 22nd from the Weather Prediction Center are generally near- to above-normal across the CONUS, with some areas warming up 20 degrees F or more from four days prior. This warmer evolution across the Lower 48 states aligns closely with expectations from the extratropical wavetrain emanating from deep convection shifting from the West Pacific back toward the Maritime Continent. This evolution appears tied to equatorial Rossby wave activity in the tropics and what could be a new Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) event. Should the MJO form and propagate toward the Date Line, this could see a resumption of a cooler pattern over the CONUS begin to materialize as cooler air spills out of the Canadian Prairies into the Plains during Week-3.

*The last few sentences are overall the most interesting to consider going forward. Regardless what happens however, Spring is likely to roar back in a big way towards the latter part of March into April at least the way it looks right now.