Spring, really?

Well, I'm sitting here on April 13th drinking an ice cold Coke and watching my Cubbies play their home opener at Wrigley Field. Everything seems to be perfectly in place right now, except one thing. I look at the window and see low gray stratus clouds with a light mist and mid-40's temperatures. This isn't a rare case in April, but it seems this has been the case the majority of the days over the last few months. After a brief warm stint in mid-March, the days have been gray and dreary with even mid-50's a rare treat.

While severe weather events are not a guarantee, this seems to be an especially lame start north of the Ohio River in the midwest. It's not even the low number of severe weather setups, it's the dreary weather. I don't need high risks and tornado farms to be a happy camper in the month of April, but show me the sun once in a while, yeah? I've been getting overly antsy to just get out and chase something... see the open road... puffy white clouds. I talked myself out of a desperation chase to Indiana today, which was probably a good thing. There have been a few tornado warned storms with supercell structure, but given the terrain and the marginal setup that will likely lead to a couple nice looking storms on radar but no tornadoes I'll be content staying here. Funny how much more enticing a setup like this is in a slow April than say, mid-June. Wouldn't even pay it any mind late in the year.

There isn't much hope in the near-future, but overall climate trends are favoring an active late-April. The fun stuff doesn't come until the last half of April into early June anyway. It'd just be nice to get out with a few teaser events. There will be chances in the central plains this week, but I'm socked with stuff to do every single day this week so I'll be sitting it all out. Can't say it looks good enough for a trip that far at this point in the year anyway.

Kind of funny last night, Tia made fun of me for being bummed that today's setup had turned to such crap. She made fun of the fact that I was sitting there pouting because the weather would not be awful and dangerous in everyone elses eyes.

For now, I'll continue sitting here watching my Cubs play in horizontal drizzle with temperatures hovering just below 40F, looking out at the long term trends for any sign of convective hope. At least it will be warmer next week, if you want to believe the GFS. Warmer, but even more boring. I'll take boring with sun and warmth over active, but with all the fun being in the south while being north-sided over and over by low pressure systems bringing weather days like today. Maybe I should just move to Tennessee for the early spring months.