Looking ahead to early 2025 spring forecast

AccuWeather

AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Expert Paul Pastelok looks ahead and breaks down the early 2025 spring forecast. He breaks down the weather patterns for each region of the United States.

Transcript

00:00Paul, you released our spring forecast today, and let's start with, listen, where's it going

00:07to be in early spring, and where is spring going to linger, or spring is going to be

00:11a little later, or winter lingers a little bit?

00:14Well, forget about around the corner in the south, it's already here.

00:18Those temperatures are unbelievable down there.

00:20They're putting the fans on and t-shirts on down in the south right now, and that's the

00:25contrast that's set up here in the month of February going into March.

00:29We're going to have warm weather down in the south, and colder weather in the north,

00:33and that is setting the zone that we're going to be seeing here as far as some active weather

00:37going forward, Bernie.

00:39Yeah, and you can see, there it is, Paul, so you think the core of the warm starts in

00:43the southwest and expands northward.

00:45Now, when I see the minus one, the minus two, I see that covers much of the northeastern

00:51United States.

00:52Yeah, we're a little bit colder than some of the forecast models have right now, but

00:56we continue to see a pattern, a track, where stuff comes into the northwest, and western

01:01Canada goes over the top, and then comes back down into the Great Lakes and northeast, and

01:05these frequent fronts will bring us down temperature-wise, but the southwest, they're going to continue

01:10to heat up, and drought is going to expand across those areas as well.

01:13Of course, when you talk about the spring, you talk about severe weather.

01:17You have some thoughts on severe weather, let's start first in the early part of the

01:22spring.

01:23You just saw the temperatures, okay, and you can see that contrast that's set up northwest

01:27to southeast through the midwest.

01:29There's our jet stream pattern over top of that, so that's a prime area that probably

01:33sets up as we go into the spring.

01:34Now, this is an early spring pattern that we have here on the graphic, and so water

01:38temperatures are recovering here in February, and they'll continue to recover.

01:42They're in the upper 40s to mid-50s along the Gulf Coast right now, but that will hold

01:46back widespread severe weather early on, but later on in the spring, those water temperatures

01:52in the Gulf are going to warm up, we're going to see a good pattern set up to the north

01:55as far as the upper-level jet stream, and we're going to see a spread out, maybe back

01:59to the eastern plains, more activity in April and May, and April could be a very busy month,

02:04and more severe weather getting to the Ohio Valley.

02:05The only thing, though, is the Great Lakes, a little cooler this year compared to last

02:10year.

02:11Remember what happened in Ohio and Pennsylvania, lots of severe weather there last year, maybe

02:14holding back just a little bit here through April, may get active May and June.

02:19Now last year, Paul, the severe weather shifted as you predicted in your long-range team into

02:24the Plains states.

02:25You think this year's a little different than last year as far as the location of most of

02:29the severe weather?

02:30Absolutely, because of the trajectory of where the storms are coming in from.

02:34They're coming in this year from over the top down in.

02:38Last year, they dug down into the south-central Rockies and then came out.

02:42That was more of a prime area for Tornado Alley.

02:44This year, it's more focused over the Tennessee and Mississippi Valley, definitely looking

02:49more active in places like St. Louis, Memphis, maybe getting into the Chicago area at some

02:55point later in the spring.

02:56So again, that is a prime area with the Gulf waters warm, trajectory of moisture at the

03:00low levels coming into that area, and an upper-level jet stream farther north this year.

03:05A little change from what we saw last year.

03:08Let's talk about flooding.

03:09That's always a concern as well, and you think along the eastern edge of the severe weather.

03:14That's the prime area?

03:15Yeah, I think so.

03:17You get the severe weather in the line, as it goes farther north and east into a little

03:21more stable air, it turns into more of a rain event, I think first half of the season especially.

03:29It's already going to be saturated.

03:30We've got a lot of systems coming in here in the short range, and so more rain on top

03:33of rain that's already fallen and the intensity level could lead to flooding around the Ohio

03:38River, Mississippi River, Arkansas River as well.

03:41And then farther north, the concerns is around the ice on the Great Lakes.

03:45You could have a little bit of excess rainfall that could also pose some flooding there.

03:49The Red River in the northern plains and spotty flooding across the Rockies, because we could

03:54see some intense warming taking place mid-spring in parts of the central Rockies, so a fast

03:59melt-off could take place there.

04:02Really quickly, Paul, really quick, a lot of people want to plant early.

04:05What about frost and freezes?

04:06Yeah, a little tough call here in the northeast.

04:09We could have a lot of back and forth.

04:11Frost could come out from time to time, and a little concern in late March and April across

04:16the southeast, the interior southeast.

04:18We could have a couple of cool highs slide across that area.

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