A Serious Weather Pattern Change Is Coming…

Right now, a big ridge of high pressure  is building in the central US, leading to  

mostly nice and spring-like weather. But a  storm system is diving in from the Pacific  

Northwest that will change everything. This is  going to lead to several days of severe weather,  

temperature swings, and snow across the country.  And we are really going to start to feel the  

impacts from this storm system on Tuesday, as we  do have a chance of severe weather in the central  

US. This is associated with a big trough of cooler  air aloft that's combining Pacific moisture, 

Canadian cold, and warm Gulf air all in the  same spot. The big storms that we expect to  

happen are expected to pop up late in  the evening, maybe around 8 or 9 p.m.,  

and then they're going to be able to produce hail,  damaging winds, and maybe even an isolated tornado  

or two through the early morning hours. The Storm  Prediction Center has highlighted this area under  

a marginal risk of severe weather on Tuesday for  the very reasons we just listed off, so if you  

live under the dark green here, make sure you're  paying attention to the weather on Tuesday. Now,  

while all this is happening in the central US,  over here in the west, the same storm system will  

be bringing snow and rain to parts of the Pacific  Northwest and the Rocky Mountains. This unsettled  

weather will be accompanied by much cooler air  as well. As you can see here on the temperature  

anomaly map, the cool air trough driving our  storm system is sending temperatures anywhere  

from 10 to 15 degrees below average all across  the west coast. But look at all that warmth in  

the central US up into Canada. You see, out ahead  of our trough, the warm air is allowed to advect  

farther northward. This is one of the big reasons  we have an elevated risk of thunderstorms. Tuesday  

evening, it's going to be near 20 degrees warmer  than usual in Chicago, which means that the high  

temperature is going to be in the low 60s. And  farther south down here in Oklahoma and Texas,  

it's going to be well into the upper 70s and lower  80s. This combination of warm air and cool air  

will continue to fuel our storm system as we go  into Wednesday. In fact, on Wednesday, the storm  

system as a whole is going to be a lot stronger.  This is once again evident from our temperature  

anomaly map. Just look at the huge area of above  average temperatures in the east, and then that  

cold pool of air in the west. The increased  intensity of these two air masses will lead to  

much heavier snowfall in the Rockies on Wednesday.  Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah will be getting  

hammered by heavy snow, and this storm system is  going to continue to get stronger and stronger as  

it interacts with that moisture from the Gulf of  Mexico. And by the time this is all said and done,  

some parts of Colorado at sea level, on the front  range, not even in the higher elevations, will  

probably get over a foot of snow. And all of that  juicy Gulf of Mexico moisture that's coming up  

into the storm isn't just going to be fueling the  snowstorm. Of course, more rain and thunderstorms  

will form along the warm front late in the evening  on Wednesday in places like Kansas and Missouri.  

And some of those storms could be strong, bringing  some hail and wind. But the real severe weather  

risk doesn't come around until Thursday, especially down here in the South Central  

U .S. You see, the big driving factor behind this  whole shebang is the 500 millibar trough carrying  

all that cold air down from Canada. But that  thing is going to start collapsing on Thursday,  

and it's eventually going to completely dissipate.  But as it falls apart, it's going to try to go out  

with a bang, really emphasizing that ridge on the  eastern side right at the last minute. As a result  

of this, on Thursday, a much more intense surge  of warm air is going to get chucked up into the  

country, and this will collide with what's left of  the cold air on the backside. And in my opinion,  

this is going to lead to our most significant  threat of severe weather in the near future. And  

I'm going to go over all the details around that  right here in a minute. But first, here's a look  

at the SPC outlook for Thursday. Even they are  highlighting this area for a very real potential  

for severe weather. One of the first things I  notice about the highlighted region here is it  

lines up almost perfectly with some of the first  places in the U.S. that will get to experience  

our total solar eclipse that's coming up in about  a month. And speaking of the total solar eclipse,  

we have to shout out today's sponsor,  which is ViSiSolar. And what ViSiSolar is,  

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at the sun specifically during the total solar  eclipse. And trust me, if you ever have plans  

on looking at the sun, you're going to need  some of these. You see, this solar eclipse  

that's coming up on April 8th, 2024 is a must-see  event for every human being that's alive today  

that has the ability to experience it. The last  total solar eclipse we had was seven years ago,  

and I went to experience totality, and it was  honestly one of most insane moments of my life.  

I will never forget it. When we got to our spot  though, we realized that we didn't have any eye  

protection and we wanted to look at the sun  obviously to see what was happening. So we  

ended up having to buy some of these glasses off  of somebody in the parking lot for a whopping $20  

per pair because there was a shortage. And listen,  this upcoming solar eclipse is a way bigger deal  

than the last one. This one's going to last longer  and it's going to be 2044 before there's another  

one here in the US. So I imagine even more than  last time, if you wait to the last minute, these  

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even if you don't live in the path of totality,  the vast majority of the US is going to be able  

to see at least some of the moon covering the  sun at some point during the day on April 8th.  

But you will have to be wearing these glasses  to really see it. And ViSiSolar also has these  

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solar eclipse. And then once again, especially  if you're in this red highlighted region of the  

US on Thursday, go ahead and get prepared for  severe weather as well. It looks like the real  

big storms are going to start firing during  the heating of the day over here in Texas,  

and then they're just going to grow into a huge  messy complex as the day goes on, and they move  

farther east. Right at the onset of these storms  forming, there will be a pretty elevated tornado  

risk. If this is actually how the atmosphere looks  when we get there, there's going to be some spin.  

But once again, we're still pretty far out, and  it's safer to say that the main threat is going  

to be hail and damaging winds on this day. We're  still monitoring the tornado probabilities. Also,  

something that we should point out is that some  very, very heavy rain is going to be possible.  

All of that Gulf of Mexico energy is going  to get dumped here in Texas and Louisiana, 

possibly leading to some flash flooding, so keep  that in mind. But the farther east these storms  

move, the more they will weaken and fizzle out,  Eventually, just leading to some general rain  

and thunder across the vast majority of the East  Coast. And as the storm system exits the U.S.,  

a big push of colder air will funnel in behind  it, sending a lot of the areas that were just  

experiencing above average temperatures back into  the chilly zone. That cold air is first going to  

pour over the Great Lakes region, bringing forth  a period of lake effect and lake enhanced snow.  

This will probably be most intense on Sunday  into Monday as the cold air mass will be so  

expansive that by this point pretty much everyone  will be experiencing below average temperatures  

except for the coasts and yeah that's right  after several days of being below average the  

west coast is actually going to be well above  average by the end of the weekend. And this of  

course is because of a new ridge that's forming  in the west that will eventually propagate to  

the east and we will repeat this cycle again  next week. But before we start thinking too far  

into the future let's focus on the short term.  If you live in any of these areas highlighted  

by the SPC over the next few days, please be  weather aware. Of course, if things go nuts,  

I'll be live on YouTube with storm chasers,  relaying warnings and all that good stuff. 

So make sure you subscribe to this channel with  notifications on so you never miss a video or a  

live stream. Once again, I really want to thank  ViSiSolar for sponsoring this video. I really hope  

to see a lot of you guys out there in the path of  totality on April 8th wearing these glasses. And  

yeah, I'm gonna be there too. I'll be in the moon  shadow somewhere in Southern Illinois. So until  

then, I will see you in the next video. Goodbye. Whoop!