St. Patrick’s Day Weather Forecast – Spring Flood Threat – National Weather Outlook For March 17, 2023

by | Mar 17, 2023 | Weather

National Weather Forecast

The storm impacting the central part of the nation Thursday will continue to move east into Friday, with snow and some icing from the Great Lakes to New England, but showers and storms from the Mid-Atlantic and Ohio River Valley to the Gulf Coast. The West Coast continues to receive a nice break from the precipitation onslaught they’ve had recently.

From Thursday through Saturday, at least a foot of snow could pile up across the south shore of Lake Superior in the U.P. of Michigan and into northern Wisconsin. Up to 3” of rain could fall in parts of the lower Mississippi Valley.

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Spring Outlook: California drought cut by half with more relief to come

More from NOAA: “There is a risk for flooding in most of the eastern half of the continental United States, including most of the Mississippi River Basin. Forecasters with the National Water Center, in concert with NWS River Forecast Centers, predict moderate to major flooding along the Mississippi River from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to St. Louis, Missouri. An above normal to record snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, combined with elevated soil moisture, increases the threat of spring flooding due to snowmelt, especially at high elevations. “Approximately 44% of the U.S. is at risk for flooding this spring,” said Ed Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center. “California’s historic snowpack, coupled with spring rain, is heightening the potential for spring floods.””

‘Extrapolations’ is the climate change TV show we desperately need

More from the Los Angeles Times: “The year is 2047. Rabbi Marshall Zucker, portrayed by “Hamilton” star Daveed Diggs, is scrambling to secure funds to keep his congregation safe as rising ocean waters flood the pews of their Miami synagogue. Then an intense hurricane hits, a sea wall breaks and Diggs must rush to save the Torah scroll, putting his own life at risk as Miami is ravaged by the storm… That’s from an early episode of “Extrapolations” — a haunting, rage-inducing, totally necessary new series about the climate dangers on the horizon. It premieres Friday on Apple TV+ and offers a terrifying glimpse at what the world might look like between 2037 and 2070. That includes children struggling with lethal “summer heart,” wildfire smoke semi-permanently blotting out the sun and rich people uploading their brains to the cloud, so they can return to Earth if things ever get better.”

Arctic ice has seen an ‘irreversible’ thinning since 2007, study says

More from the Washington Post: “Arctic sea ice declined dramatically in 2007 and has never recovered. New research suggests the loss was a fundamental change unlikely to be reversed this century, if ever — perhaps proof of the sort of climate tipping point that scientists have warned the planet could pass as it warms. The conclusion comes from three decades of data on the age and thickness of ice escaping the Arctic each year as it flows into the North Atlantic to the east of Greenland. Scientists at the Norwegian Polar Institute found a marked difference in the ice level before and after it reached an unprecedented low in 2007. In the years since, the data shows, the Arctic has entered what the researchers called a “new regime” — one that brings with it a trend toward ice cover that is much thinner and younger than it had been before 2007, the researchers say. They link the change to rising ocean temperatures in the rapidly warming Arctic, driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases.”

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– D.J. Kayser