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If you’re done with icy, crusty snow and wild winter winds, take heart: R elief is on the way — not an early spring, but a temporary "warmup” that will send thermometers into the 40s next week, above normal for late February. Strong sunshine here on Friday afternoon helped ease the impact of 20-degree temperatures and fairly strong winds. Alex Sosnowski of AccuWeather.
com posted on Friday that “Old Man Winter will begin to ease his icy grip on much of the central and eastern U.S. the coming days and weeks, but there will still be some periodic outbursts from the Arctic.
Frigid air forecast to build in eastern Canada likely will spill into part of the Northeast in March.” Merely turning off the harsh winds and bringing the sun out can work wonders in erasing frigid conditions in late February and early March, AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Brett Anderson pointed out.
Saturday: Mostly sunny, near 30, light winds. Clouds gather at night, low in the upper teens, calm winds. Sunday: Mostly cloudy, low 30s, down to near 20 overnight.
Monday: Mostly cloudy, mid-30s, 40 percent chance of rain and snow at night, low around 30. Tuesday: Mostly cloudy, mid-40s, 40 percent chance of rain; cloudy overnight, low near 32. Wednesday: Mostly cloudy, near 40, down to mid-20s at night.
Thursday: Rain likely, near 40. Rain or snow showers at night, upper 20s. Friday: Partly sunny, low 30s; clear at night, upper-teens.
Saturday (March 1): Partly sunny, around 30, cloudy at night, near 20. Sources: National Weather Service and AccuWeather.com "And we have just that sort of thing in store for many areas this weekend to next week," he said.
"Sunshine alone can provide a tremendous lift for those experiencing the winter blues.” Much of February brought a tremendous onslaught of cold air. However, a new weather pattern is now shaping up that will allow Arctic air to retreat and storms to be less frequent, Anderson said.
Here in the Berkshires, if you checked your bird-feeders on Friday afternoon, with a bright sun beating down on the wintry landscape, you might have seen a premature arrival of several warm-weather bird species. Even winter-weather fans have voiced frustration over the unforgiving ice, fierce winds, near-daily snowfalls and persistently below-average temperatures in recent weeks. Looking at the National Weather Service scoreboard at Pittsfield Municipal Airport: Snowflakes have been flying, even if briefly, on 17 of the month’s 21 days so far.
Four inches of snow fell on Feb. 15, and the same amount the next day. Our February total to date is 14.
5 inches, right on normal. Snowfall for the winter season so far has measured 45 inches, close to normal, though beware of March, when the Northeast has seen some of its heaviest dumps of snow. Temperatures have been below normal, a few times in the double digits, on 15 out of 21 days.
Some forecasters blame the high-altitude polar vortex, that circular dome of frigid air above the Arctic circle. "From a hardcore scientific standpoint, the [polar vortex] high in the atmosphere located near the North Pole has essentially remained locked up this winter and has not broken loose," AccuWeather long-range meteorologist Paul Pastelok noted. “We really have not had a major shift or weakening of that storm this winter but rather some minor fluctuations or stretching that have slightly assisted with pushing cold air southward.
" There are other, more common means to bring Arctic air southward without much help from the polar vortex, by large areas of high pressure that move southward throughout the year, every year. "There was some stretching of the polar vortex back in January when much of the central and eastern U.S.
experienced a major outbreak of frigid conditions," Pastelok acknowledged. "But more accurately, it was the polar jet stream that became distorted and helped to direct frigid high pressure areas into the U.S.
" For the next seven days, it will be mostly dry locally as temperatures start moderating. Other than some stray snow or rain showers, the work and school week will be milder, with a good chance of rain on Thursday. The Climate Prediction Center's long-range forecast for March 2-8 calls for a return to below normal temperatures, with above normal precipitation.
Day by day . . .
Saturday: Mostly sunny, near 30, light winds. Clouds gather at night, low in the upper teens, calm winds. Sunday: Mostly cloudy, low 30s, down to near 20 overnight.
Monday: Mostly cloudy, mid-30s, 40 percent chance of rain and snow at night, low around 30. Tuesday: Mostly cloudy, mid-40s, 40 percent chance of rain; cloudy overnight, low near 32. Wednesday: Mostly cloudy, near 40, down to mid-20s at night.
Thursday: Rain likely, near 40. Rain or snow showers at night, upper 20s. Friday: Partly sunny, low 30s; clear at night, upper-teens.
Saturday (March 1): Partly sunny, around 30, cloudy at night, near 20. Sources: National Weather Service and AccuWeather.com.
