March kickstarts the transition season for many across the United States, and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has issued its monthly outlook for March 2020 temperature and precipitation. As a reminder, these outlooks don’t predict the actual numerical temperature or the exact amount of precipitation. Instead, they predict the probability that monthly temperatures and precipitation will be in the upper or lower third of the climatological record (defined as the 1981-2010 period) for a given location. Darker colors refer to a higher chance, not more extreme conditions.
The highest chance for above-average temperatures during March is located across the lower Mississippi Valley from northeastern Arkansas and western Tennessee to the lower Great Lakes in Michigan and southern Wisconsin. However, the entire central and eastern parts of the contiguous United States have a tilt in the odds toward above-average temperatures during March. Only the Pacific Northwest sees probabilities tilted towards a cooler-than-average March.
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Image via NOAA Climate