Where Is Spring?

March 20th is the first day of Spring, but it sure doesn't feel like it. It's almost like we went from Winter (which wasn't much) right into summer with temperatures around 90! So what is going on to cause this? Let me do my best to break it down into terms we all understand.

In the image above, a front has stalled out just North of the panhandle. When you see a mix of blue triangles and red semi-circles, that indicates a stationary front - little to no movement. So until that sucker moves, we will keep a nice bubble of warm air over the area. When the front starts moving again, it will be a cold front and symbolized by all blue triangles (just like you can see above Little Rock, AK). When it starts moving, we will see the warm area get pushed back South and our temps will begin to drop a little.

During the first couple months of 2017, we have seen West winds coming off the mountains allowing temps to heat up.

It also appears that the Subtropical Jet Stream has been tracking more North, and that has allowed more warm air from the South to creep towards the panhandle. Think of the jet stream as a big ol' I-40 in the sky. 2 of them cross the USA, and when the Southern stream stays North of us, it pushes the weather along to the North of us. If nothing is over us to push and pull changing weather in, then we see no changes. And it also acts as a wall between air masses, thus when it stays North, it doesn't push the warm air back down.