Interestingly, drought intact over Portugal and Spain receives beneficial rainfall over the next 2 weeks. However, everywhere else in Europe is dry including most crop areas. The dryness extends to Russia. The week 3-4 outlook by ECMWF projects a warm/dry ridge over the East Europe/West Russia border. The dryness is becoming a crop issue heading toward mid-spring.

The U.S. observed another warmer than normal meteorological winter while the national pattern was somewhat drier than normal (Fig. 2). The West Coast, South and Southeast U.S. were warmest compared to normal while the precipitation pattern was very dry in the central Great Plains to Texas while just to the east the Ohio and Tennessee Valley(s) were wetter than normal.

An upper trough becomes quasi-stationary over Ukraine this week and becomes more intense next week. Ukraine weather features rain and snow showers that become mostly snow this weekend and next week as a colder regime develops. In Australia the historic heavy rains on the East Coast continue. The New South Wales coast is hardest hit this week, but heavy rains return to the Brisbane area next week.

A “perfect storm” emerged just-off Brisbane on the central East Coast of Australia yesterday. A small but intense area of upper-level difluence above an equally intense area of low-level conflue4nce created a “chimney effect” to drive a super convective storm which extended inland unloading record rainfall for Brisbane and surrounding communities.