GET USED TO A WARM SPRING
March forecast: Weather whiplash
A warmer-than-normal spring is on its way but we haven’t escaped the icy grasp of winter quite yet.
The Weather Network delivered its 2017 spring forecast on Tuesday and said Windsor and Essex County will experience warmerthan-normal temperatures and near-normal amounts of rain.
“For the majority of March, we will experience this weather whiplash between spring and winter temperatures,” said Dayna Vettese, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.
“But by the time we get to April and May, we expect those temperatures to steadily climb and we will see temperatures above normal for the remainder of spring.”
This week is a prime example of the varying temperatures we can expect to see for the rest of this month.
The mercury is expected to climb to 16 C Wednesday before dropping to 1 C on Thursday. The temperature is then expected to rise again to 9 C on Sunday.
Vettese said the battle between winter and summer can make it difficult to predict the forecast for transitional seasons like spring and fall.
The contrast in temperatures can create storm systems that have the potential to impact precipitation totals for an entire month and throw off the forecast prediction.
Last November, The Weather Network forecast “classic winter weather” for Windsor and Essex County with below normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation.
Vettese said they were correct with the precipitation forecast but the region didn’t experience the sustained cold that would keep the snow on the ground.
“We would get these shots of snow and it wouldn’t last very long because the warm weather would come and melt the snow away,” she said.
February averaged five to six degrees warmer than normal and that trend is expected to continue into March.
According to Environment Canada, the average temperature for February between 1981 and 2010 was -2.6 C. This year, the monthly average was a comparatively balmy 2.1 C.
Historically, the average temperature for March is 2.3 C, April is 8.9 C and May is 15 C.
March may get a jump start on its average precipitation total this week. Environment Canada forecasts rainfall amounts of 15 to 25 mm of rain Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
The average rainfall total for March is 50.9 mm.
The Essex Region Conservation Authority has issued a flood outlook for the area warning of an “enhanced possibility of flooding and drainage problems throughout the entire region.”
Predicted strong winds out of the south of 20 to 40 kilometres an hour with gusts of 85 km/h could cause soil loss and erosion along shoreline areas.
People are asked to use extra caution and avoid rivers, lakes, ditches, streams and ponds. Any remaining ice cover will be unstable and dangerous.