What are the weather trends for the end of February?

With the weather quieting down for a couple of days we are able to step back from the details of the day to day weather issues and look at the bigger picture and what it potentially means for central New York.

The easiest way to explain things is to show the 8 to 14 day Forecast temperature trends.

Late February Set-Up:

Colder than normal air (with a trough of low pressure) is locked into the West. This set up about a week ago with record snow in Seattle, heavy rains across California and a big dump of snow in the mountains (some ski areas had nearly 100″ in a week!).

Meanwhile, warmth has been building over the Southeast US courtesy a ridge of high pressure. Halfway through the month of February, Atlanta is averaging almost 8 and a half degrees above normal and a week ago they broke a record high with 80 which I believe is the earliest in the year they have hit 80.

This type of pattern seems like it stays locked in for the next 2 weeks which gets us to the end of the month. What does that mean for us in central New York?

Central New York Impacts:

It looks like our weather is active as we stay near the main jet stream. We should see frequent storms systems impacting us over the next 2 weeks but it will be tough to hold onto cold air so I’m thinking we get into more of these ‘mixed’ precipitation events. We might start as snow but then go over to sleet, freezing rain or even rain.

Also, don’t be surprised if we get a couple more mild days. We almost hit 50 degrees Friday with some rain. I could see that happening again between now and the start of March.

So there are the broad strokes. We’ll give you the day to day details as things unfold. Our first chance for one of these ‘mixed’ precipitation events comes in the Wednesday/Thursday time frame next week