Observations for Monday, March 28th, 2011

After a spring break full full of almost every kind of weather you can imagine, including strong wind, snow, rain, and sunshine, it's back to the grind of the school semester.  Fortunately, the conditions to start off the week are much more favorable for traveling to class, as it's not intensely hailing or dumping 12 inches of snow outside.  I took some pictures of the snowy events from spring break, and I'll be sure to upload them to the Pictures tab of my blog.  Monday was a really decent day outside, but a bit colder than I would have liked.  At the time of my observations, the temperature was about 29 degrees out, with calm winds.  Skies are currently clear, and it's possible to see many stars in the sky.  It would almost seem as if we're experiencing quite the high pressure system in our area, but what's strange is that map data shows a significant low pressure system to the south of us with several storms.  Over the Rocky Mountains, there is a large, consistent stationary front, which is also quite interesting.  I'd be interested to know why there is such a difference between the split of high and low pressure systems right now in the nation to the north and south.  The map below describes my reactions more clearly.  I would predict warmer weather to start to creep in within the next week or so.