The sun is out this morning, the birds are singing and it smells so fresh after our rain. The snow is almost gone, just a few patches here and there,  and check this out, the temperature has officially hit 50!! That’s the first 50 since October.

WooHoo!!!

Has Spring really sprung in the Midwest?

Maybe, but not for the Sierra Nevada. Winter Storm Warnings are posted for the Sierra Nevada through Saturday. They’re expecting up to 13 inches of snow tonight.

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Looks like we’ve quickly changed over from winter to spring here in Wisconsin. The last couple of days have been very foggy out, yesterday and again this morning we had rain with more rain forecast for the next 5 days and our temperatures are forecast to be in the upper 40’s and pushing 50 the next few days. It goes without saying that the snow is melting fast and our yard has reappeared.

Another sign of spring also happened on Monday when two tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma, one of them being an F2 that destroyed 5 homes . Here’s some video of that tornado.

Today could be very rough day for folks living in eastern Oklahoma, southeast Kansas, Arkansas, and southern Missouri as conditions are setting up for the possibility of a big severe thunderstorm and tornado outbreak  this afternoon and tonight. Let’s hope that it’s not to bad for those folks. Lynne has a cousin who lives in southern Missouri so our thoughts will be with him and his family today. I’ll be keeping a close eye on the radar in that area today.

If you’d like to follow the storms chasers live as they chase these storms, the best place to do it is at TornadoVideos.net at this link: http://www.tornadovideos.net/full-screen-chaser-video.php

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As the latest storm dumped another foot of snow on the Sierra Nevada, the snow pack is looking pretty good for the beginning of March. The March 1st snow surveys are showing the average water content of the snow pack to be 107% of normal.

Mammoth Mtn is the first ski area in the Sierra to reach the 400 inch snowfall mark for the season, passing it yesterday. As of today they sit at 412 inches. Kirkwood is second at 372 inches. Both have snow bases of 11-14 feet.

The next storm comes in this weekend and is forecast to be the first cut-off low of the winter. The current forecast has the storm hitting Southern California more than the Sierra though.

Just an extra note here, this same storm may bring on the first severe weather event for the middle of the country. The storm chasers are beginning to lick their lips as tornado season approaches.

Speaking of tornadoes, there was only one tornado in the whole country for the month of February. You’ll never guess where it was?

Bakersfield, CA

Heard that on The Weather Channel this morning

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Wow, we got a huge surprise this afternoon as a major lake effect snow band formed to the north, started moving south, and is hammering us right now. It went from no snow at 5:24 to a white out at 5:25. I’m not kidding, this is the hardest it’s snowed all winter. I can barely make out the houses across the street!

They say we should get 4-5 inches in just a few hours with snowfall  rates at 1.5 to 2 inches an hour. Lynne is out there somewhere in this mess. I hope she’s close to home.

Just heard from her, she’s close to home.

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