7:10PM Happy Easter! One thing to appreciate on this day is that, despite fires developing in California, they have been well contained and remain small. We forecast for Visalia last night, and today, west of town, this little fire, the Lake fire popped up.Not a major concern, but worth noting.

9:11PM High pressure and a slow moving pattern is the story in the west. The forecast from Denver tells the story.

12:30AM: Cold Front!

10:34PM: The SPC does have a hatched area on this evening’s outlook. Here is the hail forecast for you to see the new graphics in action.

2:50PM: It’s hot, and starting to dry out out west. Because this time of year is the time most shortly following the rainy season, it’s not a particularly high time, climatologically, for wildfires. Having the dry heat now, though, doesn’t help down the road.

8:17PM: There is a cold front taunting the hot the sun baked southwest, lined up from northern Idaho to southwest Oregon bringing showers to the Pacific Northwest.

10:52PM The short term forecast isn’t changing. The long term forecast isn’t changing. Above normal temps for a lot of the country (except New England) but that doesn’t necessarily mean “hot” weather. It’s a cool 43, for example, already in Hastings, NE.

11:48PM: I’ll get into it a bit more later, but the SPC has made changes to the site. Like I said, more on the more significant changes soon, but also, there is an updated color palette for the maps, and I am into it.

3:27PM: Well, happy spring. It’s extraordinarily warm out west, but still quite brisk in the northeast. If you have been around meteorology enough, you know what that means!

10:33PM: Absolutely, we aren’t going to be worrying about snow in Appalachia like we saw in the Great Lakes over the last couple of days, or like we saw on the East Coast last month, but I’m here to tell you, wind knows no bound by temperature of latitude.

10:31PM: The snow is done in the Twin Cities, though the wind has arrived. While totals were not as dramatic in the Cities as the most dire forecasts, residents of Red Wing, Lake City and other towns in southeast Minnesota can attest that the storm still packed plenty of punch, with 20″ reported around those communities. It’s higher in central Wisconsin. But back to the Twin Cities. The tie ups go to show that getting much over 8″ is all the same. The 13″ I got here were plenty

10:15PM: Here in Minnesota, we’re worried primarily about the overwhelming amount of snow and ice that is coming our way. As I noted, however, we’ve got a jump on the severe weather season as well for many parts of the country. The more traditional March storm zone will get it on Sunday. It will be a good day to remain vigilant in the Mississippi Valley, east to the Tennessee Valley.

10:27PM: Unfortunately, the pattern we are in is sticking around. The threat for severe storms will return from the southern Great Lakes southward. I expect a reduced tornado threat, and, yikes…. potential blizzard conditions in Michigan and Wisconsin