Backdoor cold front season is here, what’s the deal?
Note: This post has been edited from its original version and refreshed for Spring 2018.
Each spring we emerge from a long cold winter with aspirations of 70 degree temperatures, a cool breeze and plenty of sun. It rarely works out that way. Whether it be an upper level low, a stalled cold front, or a back door frontal boundary, there are plenty of meteorological events to blame for a cold and damp spring in the Northeast states. The fact of the matter is, the Northeast is a difficult place to be during a transition season. The changing and morphing wavelengths of the mid and upper level ridges and troughs mean the potential for cutoff lows, and the colder ocean waters(this time of year especially) will wreak havoc on any warmup.
This weekend, we will once again revisit the science behind a back door cold front. A significant low pressure system is developing through the Central United States today, with the severe weather likely from the Plains into the Mississippi Valley and Southeast states. Meteorology tells us that a warm front should be surging north from the Mid Atlantic states into New England as this low pressure moves towards the Great Lakes, with southerly winds ramping up warm air south of the front. But forecast models suggest the front will only progress so far before it begins a dramatic retreat back south. Why? The answer lies in the setup both aloft and at the surface, and it leads to the development of a backdoor front which will push the warm air back to our south late Saturday into Sunday.
