It’s sure been a wild pattern thanks to a highly amplified, fuelled pattern and in March, you get the extremes. With the upper trough over Texas, you get the huge rains, further east, beneath the heat pump of the ridge, you get record ‘summer-like’ warmth!

This week’s upper air pattern has been perfect for extreme weather and extreme contrasts and anomalies.

The unusually deep and cold cut off low brought unusual snowfall to unusual places.

From weather.com

The area of low pressure that formed in northern Mexico was unusually strong and cold for that area, not only for March, but anytime of year.

“Such a large, strong upper low appears to be an unprecedented event in modern weather observations for Mexico,” said Bob Henson in a wunderground.com blog.

(PHOTOS: Snow in Mexico)

As the satellite image illustrates, snow fell throughout Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains. However, some high-valley locations even saw snowfall from this storm system.

Zacatecas International Airport (elevation 7,141 feet) in north-central Mexico reported thundersnow Wednesday. Moderate snow was reported there once again Thursday morning. 

Snow was also observed Thursday morning at Durango International Airport, which is located at an elevation of 6,102 feet. 

Mexico’s second-most populated city, Guadalajara, even saw a coating of snow in some areas. Guadalajara is at a latitude lower than Miami and even Havana, Cuba. However, its elevation of about 5,200 feet in combination with the cold nature of the low pressure system allowed snow to fall there. This is reportedly the first snow in Guadalajara since December 1997, another strong El Nino year. 

Between the cold cut off low crossing Mexico and summer-like ridge over Florida, a plume of rich Caribbean heat and humidity was funnelled northward into the clash zone over the Mid South, as a consequence of this high octane fuel being injected into a highly unstable atmosphere, extreme rainfall was the result.

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2 Feet Of Rain In 4 Days

Monroe Co, LA has picked up an astonishing 24 inches of rain within a 4 day period. Unprecedented for March and this would be pretty exceptional even with a tropical cyclone.

First, here are the highest storm-total rainfalls as of March 12, from both official observing stations and cooperative observers:

• Near Monroe, Louisiana: 24.58 inches
• Near Swartz, Louisiana: 22.25 inches
• Near Hemphill, Texas: 18.10 inches
• Near Minden, Louisiana: 17.26 inches
• Near Hamburg, Arkansas: 15.70 inches
• Near Greenville, Mississippi: 14.18 inches
• Near Longview, Texas: 12.03 inches
• Shreveport (Regional Airport), Louisiana: 11.86 inches
• Near Collierville, Tennessee: 11.50 inches
• Memphis Int’l Airport: 8.40 inches
• Hattiesbug, Mississippi: 7.78 inches
• Jackson, Mississippi: 7.36 inches

Suffice to say, this was one of the heaviest March rain events on record in this area, more reminiscent of a tropical storm or its remnant.

Unprecedented Early Season Warmth

From weather.com

On Wednesday, at least 14 locations in Northeast saw the warmest temperatures on record for so early in a calendar year:

Albany, New York: 81 degrees (This was also 40 degrees above the average high of 41 degrees for the date)
Allentown, Pennsylvania: 80 degrees
Boston: 77 degrees
Binghamton, New York: 72 degrees
Glens Falls, New York: 77 degrees)
Hartford, Connecticut (Bradley Int’l): 81 degrees
Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania: 73 degrees
Newark, New Jersey: 82 degrees
New York City: 77 degrees
Philadelphia: 82 degrees
Poughkeepsie, New York: 82 degrees
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: 76 degrees
Syracuse, New York: 78 degrees
Trenton, New Jersey: 80 degrees

As the upper low lifts north into the Mid-Mississippi Valley, so the severe weather threat increases.

Thank or blame El Nino… The Southern Plains and Mid-South region has experienced 12 major flood events over the past 12 months!

See today’s video.

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