Varieties of weather experience
Today is Wednesday, March 11th, 2026. I awoke this morning to a loud bang of thunder that shook the house as it rumbled through the skies accompanied by lightning, wind and even some small hail that could be heard bouncing off of roofs and cars.
The clouds were departing by sunrise and the morning sky was beautiful. My first thought was that a storm this intense so early must certainly have a lot of energy. Stepping outside with my morning caffeine I could smell the richness of the air.
The air was very humid and the morning forecast called for more storms later in the day. The weather pattern that was moving across the country had a lot of energy from the Gulf of Mexico and had also captured cold air from the north.
The morning temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska was still 32 degrees below zero and the developing storm pattern looks like it could capture some of the cold Arctic air to help feed the system as it moved across the country. The perfect ingredients for volatile weather: Gulf moisture, warm and cold air colliding and a fast-moving Jet Stream to carry it all forward.
Looking at my phone I was not surprised when the weather service posted severe weather warnings for a large area of the country including ours. Storms had battered much of the middle part of the country the day before, including tornadoes.
Behind the storms temperatures are expected to just struggle into the low 40s on Thursday. Today we broke another record when it reached 80 degrees. The previous record for the 11th was 76 set in 1986.
Another note of interest is that on March 7th our temperature in Uniontown hit 83 degrees, breaking the old one of 76 degrees. That reading also broke the record for the earliest 80-degree reading in March in Uniontown. The previous record was 80 degrees recorded on the 13th in 1928. This is also the earliest spring record as we had no 80s in January or February and our records go back over 100 years thanks to Dr. Marstellar and his daily recordings.
Although by historical standards we had a bit of an Old Fashioned Winter this season, there were also plenty of mild and warm days that when you look at the entire picture it was not all that bad. We do appear to have a brief return to some winter temperatures this week, however nothing like the visit from the Polar Vortex in January and February.
Average temperatures in Mid-March are low 50s for afternoon highs and low 30s for morning lows and you might want to hold off on any spring planting as it still is a bit too early for plants to go in the ground.
Taking advantage of a break in the rain I got a short hike on the Rotary walk and was reminded of the clump of yellow Daffodils that my friend Sam and I planted a few years ago. What a hardy plant, deer and rabbits don’t bother them and once planted Daffodils will bloom for decades each year, reminding us of the beauty of the show that Mother Nature is preparing for us.