Updated 04.01.21 @ 7:43a

While April is getting off to an unusually cold start for a good chunk of the country, this (thankfully, for most) won’t be the theme for the month, as a whole. We anticipate a quick bounce back in the temperature department over Easter weekend and on into next week. We’ll let our shorter term products handle that and focus more on the month, overall, with this post.

Let’s take a look at some of the various modeling for the month of April.

JMA take-away: large scale drier than normal conditions with widespread warmth (exception being the immediate West Coast and Southeast).

CFSv2 take-away: widespread warmth through the central and north along with widespread drier than normal conditions (exception being the northern Rockies/ western Plains).

European Weeklies take-away: large scale drier than normal with warmth through the central, upper Midwest, and Northeast.

From a teleconnection perspective, you know we really like to key in on the NAO this time of year. Should that flip negative, then blocking would likely force a colder pattern into our immediate part of the country (can also lead to wet times, as well). That doesn’t appear to be the case this year- at least over the next few weeks. Perhaps what’s more interesting is the MJO as it’s showing signs of wanting to be more amplified throughout the coming weeks.

You get a transitional theme in the temperature department as the MJO traverses phases 4-7 this time of year:

The one constant (exception being Phase 7) is relative warmth throughout the Plains.

Given all of the above, we’re leaning towards a widespread warmer than normal month and relatively quiet month, as well, given the time of year.