Saturday, March 8, 2008

March Monster

The latest winter storm was centered over West Virginia this morning and its cold front stretched from southern Florida to New England. Large and powerful, it raked the Southeast with severe thunderstorms and tornadoes and is now pulling in Atlantic moisture, dumping heavy rains across the East Coast States. Behind the front, heavy snow, up to two inches per hour, is falling sideways, whipped by north winds of forty miles per hour. Two feet of snow will eventually blanket the snowbelt, from northeast Ohio to Upstate New York, and some accumulation will occur as far south as Alabama and Georgia.

Back in Missouri, following a night in the low teens, the sun has returned and the wind has shifted to the southwest. We might reach forty today and should be in the low fifties by tomorrow afternoon. After another brush with winter, spring has regained control. We are experiencing the calm after the storm.