Spring weather outlook in Maryland: Warm and rainy

Spring is here. And after a stretch of wild weather, it’s starting to actually feel like springtime in Maryland.

Temperatures in Central Maryland are settling down in the mid-60s after record-breaking heat, snow, thunderstorms and tornado warnings in less than 10 days. Expect this first weekend of spring to be sunny with a chance of rain in the evenings, according to forecasts from the National Weather Service.

What to expect for spring

Springtime is expected to bring above-average temperatures across the U.S., according to the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, and the seasonal precipitation outlook for Maryland is above normal.

Springtime is often “the most violent weather of the year,” said Lars Peter Riishojgaard, the director of the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at the University of Maryland, and powerful storms are common around the equinox, the astronomical start of spring in the Northern hemisphere.

But the warming of the atmosphere due to greenhouse emissions is fueling extreme weather. When very warm pressure systems from the tropics collide with cold air from the northern regions, it can lead to explosive phenomena, like the weather swings Maryland saw in March, Riishojgaard said. So, while these changes in temperature are not atypical, they were exacerbated by the warming of the atmosphere, he said.

Andrew Snyder, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Baltimore/Washington office, echoed Riishojgaard.

“It’s not unusual to have both severe thunderstorms and snow in March at our latitude,” he said. “However, the rapid 30- to 50-degree swings we have experienced recently do not occur every year.”

Saying goodbye to winter

Maryland saw an unusual winter, with temperatures hovering above average for much of November and December, then a historic storm in January that dumped almost a foot of snow and ice in the region.

Still, the region saw below-normal snowfall between December and February, said Snyder. The weather service registered about 17.6 inches of total snowfall in Baltimore, whereas the average is 18.8 inches, he said.