A strong “atmospheric river” will arrive on the West Coast just as the calendar is turning to February. Several waves of rain are expected across California, Oregon and Washington through the 9th or 10th, with heavy snow blanketing the Sierra Nevada. These storms will march across the southern half of the U.S., bringing rain from Kansas to the Carolinas and southward toward the Gulf Coast.
Two large areas of high pressure will dominate the northern tier for the first week or so of February, with generally dry weather expected across the Rockies, northern Plains, Great Lakes and Northeast.
As the pattern moves slowly along, temperatures will generally run near to slightly below average across the East, with warm temperatures spreading across the midsection of the country from the Great Basin to the Appalachians. The storminess in the West will keep temperatures on the cool side there.
By February’s second weekend, the parade of storms will wind down in the West. It will take a few more days after that for the storms to work their way across the country, but the threat for flooding rain will come to an end across the Golden State.
As Valentine’s Day approaches, anticipate a return to a more typical February pattern of light snow across the northern tier, with lighter rainfall across the southern states. Temperatures will run relatively close to average for most of the country, with no significant outbreaks of cold or warm air.
The second half of February looks to trend closer to this benign pattern than a stormy one, although the potential exists for a few strong storms to develop across the East. If these nor’easters come to pass, the latter half of the month could see rain along the coast with snow across the Northeast’s interior. Otherwise, the nation as a whole will breathe a sigh of relief with generally quiet weather from the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific coast.
A few shots of colder air will likely invade the Plains and East over the second half of February. However, this chill doesn’t look to be too out-of-the-ordinary, with temperatures generally 5 to 10 degrees below average. Meanwhile, the West will see generally quiet weather leading to seasonably mild temperatures as the month winds down.
February can be known for big snowstorms and big tornado outbreaks. One of the worst of all-time occurred in 2008, on February 5 and 6. Eighty-seven confirmed tornadoes as strong as EF-3 and EF-4 pummeled the Southeast and Ohio Valley, causing upwards of 1 billion dollars in damage. Meanwhile, the Mid-Atlantic was buried under as much as 40 to 50 inches of snow as a pair of blizzards crippled the region in 2010. Not to be left out, the Southeast has also had its share of snowstorms: February 2015 featured a storm that brought 5 to 8 inches of snow from Texas to Virginia.
By WeatherBug Meteorologist, Andrew Rosenthal
