March 2012 was the warmest on record! With an average temperature of 58.1, we beat out the old warmest March in 2010 by a half of a degree.
Just looking at the temperature graph, it was pretty incredible. We had 4 days eighty and above. 15 days in the 70′s It only dropped to freezing or lower 8 times, all in the first 10 days of the month.
A record high was tied on March 13th at 82 degrees. It was a very warm week. Humidity flowed freely from the Gulf of Mexico but a lack of fronts or strong weather systems aloft meant rain and storms were rare and random. There was a pocket of rain and hail to the east of Springfield on the 13th.
The “wet week” started as a push of powerful jet stream winds made its way into the central U.S. I took advantage of the Gulf humidity and the fast jet stream winds to go on a storm chase to Oklahoma on Sunday the 18th. Eventually, this system would “cut-off” and slowly move over the south central U.S. and in fact track right over the Ozarks. We were for the most part spared of any severe weather (there were a few isolated wind reports) as this system first started affecting the area. It was mostly a heavy rain producer.
Precipitation fell as all rain expect for a trace of snow on the 8th. Most of the Ozarks had above normal precipitation (insert), thanks mostly to the mid-month low mentioned above. Areas of northern Arkansas, and extreme southern and southwestern Missouri had between 6-8 inches of rain for the month on average with locally much more.
The Springfield National Weather Service review for much of the Ozarks can be found here.
Precipitation Departure from Normal March 1-30 2012