March Storms
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Even though you know it's coming, there's always a shiver of joy when you turn the calendar to March and see the word "spring" three weeks down the page. But before you get to spring, meteorologically, you may well find yourself digging out of the worst winter storm of the year. Hi. I'm Dave Thurlow and this is the Weather Notebook.

The fact is, that early March provides an ideal environment for blizzards. Cold air and moisture, the prime ingredients, are usually in ample supply after three months of winter. And, with the approach of spring, the jet stream weakens and retreats northward. That gives snow storms the time to hang in, gather their forces, and dump down. A system that might have zipped by on the January jet as a three-inch Alberta Clipper can mushroom in March into an 18-inch monster.

The Blizzard of March 12, 1888, is perhaps the most famous March snow storm, with 21 inches in New York City and nearly 47 in Albany. But even more impressive in scope and scale was the so-called Superstorm of March 12-14, 1993. That storm deposited up to 50 inches of snow in favored locales between Alabama and Maine. And, for the first time in history, a storm shut down every major airport on the East Coast. But lets not forget all those other storms that commonly make March the snowiest month of the year in the Rockies.

That old saw about March coming in like a lion has some truth to it after all though it's often a lion with a very thick white mane. Many thanks today to writer David Laskin. The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. It is underwritten by Subaru of America and the National Science Foundation.