A blizzard and more tornadoes in the central U.S. as winter ends

If you’re a weather or climate fan, we’re about to enter the third week of spring, since it started March 1 on our calendars. For normies, the book is about to be closed on winter as astronomical spring arrives Thursday. In proper fashion, we’ve got snow, severe weather and more wildfires on the table today.

Weather Watch

Blizzard! Snow falling in the central Plains, and blowing around in Colorado, will spread northeastward in a thin band from Kansas to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan today. Blizzard warnings are in effect from around Dodge City to southeast Minnesota with winter storm warnings northeast of that. From a couple inches to as much as a foot will accumulate, then get blown around by wind gusts of 50 to 65 mph.

Chicagoland tornadoes? The warm sector of this storm system was hobbled by the historic one a few days back. It gobbled up and shunted low-level moisture away, but another potent upper-level disturbance and strong surface low pressure area will try to make lemonade out of lemons. In this case, the lemonade is a risk of strong tornadoes in Illinois. Very cold air aloft and strong dynamics can offset moisture issues in these situations.

Lightning links

Astronomical spring arrives during the predawn Thursday morning on the East Coast.

Wildfire shuts down Florida Keys' famed 18-Mile Stretch, snarling traffic.

Windstorm Wednesday

As windstorm after windstorm impacts the central U.S., big dust events have also been common. Another struck Tuesday.

“Around 3:00 the whole Chihuahuan Desert and High Plains started to mobilize,” soil scientist Shawn Salley posted on Bluesky during the late day.

Several large pileups occurred as visibilities dropped to mere feet in the hardest hit spots of New Mexico and West Texas. Several interstates, including a 130-mile stretch of I-10, were closed for a time.

Widespread wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph can be thanked. Roswell gusted to 75 mph, while Albuquerque reached 68 mph. Gusts up to 100 mph were observed in high elevations.

As with the episode that ran from Texas to Canada with last week’s storm, all the suspended particulates led to very unhealthy air.

Like the wind itself, dust is typical in the southern Plains region, especially before any spring green up. The latest dust storms are being supersized by drought and climate change.

High winds and fire weather concerns stretch from southwest Texas through the Midwest again on Wednesday.

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Weekday morning newsletter by a journalist/forecaster that connects weather and climate change dots while occasionally stirring the pot.

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