Big pattern change coming

That was one crazy winter storm. Although Cape Girardeau missed out on the heavy snow, it was amazing to see the 6+ inch totals along a narrow band from Dexter, Sikeston, East Prairie, Cairo, and to Paducah.

This map from the National Weather Service shows the official measurements of new snow that fell yesterday.

This is on top of the sleet and snow that fell from the previous system. East Prairie, in particular, reported a total snow depth of 11 inches.

It's extremely rare for a system coming from the north to drop so much snow. Usually these clipper systems move quickly and are only capable of dropping 1-3 inches -- and that's being generous.

Of course, the computer models were completely out to lunch on this. Looking through the model runs from Sunday, I can't find a single example that produced more than 3 inches in Southeast Missouri.

If you believe the computer models going forward, a major shift is coming in the weather patterns. We will soon see the backside of this Arctic airmass which has overstayed its welcome. The forecast calls for 30s on Thursday, 40s on Friday, 50s on Saturday, and perhaps 60s on Sunday.

The longer-range 8-14 day outlook calls for above-average temperatures in the eastern half of the country, and below-average weather in the west.

This is a flip-flop from the brutal weather we've had since Christmas.