You are not alone if you thought this past week was unusually cold. The last five days have all been at least ten degrees colder than normal. That's a pretty rare event. The last time we had five straight days of double-digit coolness was in January 2013 and there have only been seven such streaks since 2002. The longest such streak was six days in November 2008. The recent cold wave has dropped the month's average temperature to 5.6 degrees below normal, or just above being one of the ten coldest March's on record.
In addition to being cold, March has also been way drier than normal. We are nearly 2.5 inches below the average but that deficit could disappear over the weekend. A line of showers ahead of a cold front is skulking about just west of the city this morning. Some of that rain will make it here this afternoon but, despite the clouds and rain, we'll see a high in the mid to upper 50s.
The cold front is expected to stall south of the city and that will set the stage for lots of rain this weekend, especially from Saturday night into Sunday morning. An upper-level low is expected to peel off the jet stream and burble along above the stalled front. That burbling should produce a new surface low and the National Weather Service expects that new storm to drop 1-2 inches of rain Saturday night and another half-inch on Sunday. Look for a high in the upper 40s on Saturday and mid 40s on Sunday. Fear not, warm weather is expected to return next week.
