Spring is in view, but first...

The good news is that we should see a major pattern shift next week, allowing much warmer air to arrive. For the first time in weeks, the extended 8-14 Day Outlook is projecting above-average temperatures for much of the country.

Now for the bad news -- or good news if you like snow storms. We could see quite a nice little March snowfest on Wednesday. The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for the region with 4-6 inches expected at Cape Girardeau and higher 6-10 inch totals expected to the south.

The computer models have been doing their usual flip-flopping song-and-dance all day, with some model runs showing little snow at Cape (couple inches) and other model runs going off the charts with massive snow and sleet totals.

We should see much of our current snowpack melt or wash away tomorrow as temperatures climb to near 50°F accompanied by rain showers. Thunderstorms, which had been in earlier forecasts, now seem rather unlikely.

Then the thermometer will crash into the 20s during the day Wednesday as the next round of precip arrives. Assuming we get a deep snowfall, the low temperature Thursday night could plummet into the single digits and shatter records.

It probably won't get significantly above freezing again until Saturday, so any new snowpack will stick around for a few days, but hopefully not as long as the last snowpack.

As an added feature, the snow on Wednesday is expected to arrive with 10-20 mph winds and 25 mph gusts. This doesn't meet the official criteria for a blizzard, but it might be hard to tell the difference.