Final Week Of March Finally Brings A True Taste Of Spring

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - It has been a roller coaster to start 2018 in the Philly area. We were extremely cold in the start of January before slowly evening out and we ended up basically average for the month.

Then we hit February and temperatures went on a huge upswing where we had multiple days in the 60s and even the 70s during the month. Then March showed up and Mother Nature said "Spring...Ha!" and we have been sitting well below normal for a majority of the month. While some good news in the forecast for the immediate future we could be looking at another cool down as we start the month of April.

The final week of March finally brings a true taste of Spring time as temperatures climb into the 50s and then eventually the 60s by the end of the work week. We will have a couple precipitation chances as well, but again thanks to the temperatures that are going to be into at least the normal range, all the precipitation should fall as rain rather than snow chances this week. We can all agree that is great news! Right now we have had a total of 3 days of 50 or higher during the month of March and as a whole we have only had a total of 4 days that were at or above normal when it came to our daily high temperature. After this week we will hopefully push those numbers as high as 7 days of 50s or higher and 6 days total of at or above normal high temperatures. As mentioned though there is a chance that these warmer temperatures are a bit short-lived as we move into the beginning of April.

As we get through Easter Weekend and start out the month of April, many of us are going to really be looking into the future to hopefully see truly sustained Spring weather. Unfortunately the 60s that we have this week could be fleeting thanks to some colder air that is possibly moving back into the area after the Holiday weekend. Taking a look at some of the mid-range models, it shows that cooler air is likely to filter back into the region for the first week of April. Right now the models point to a range of possible 3-5° below normal to start the new month. There is a small silver lining associated with the cooler temperatures though. To start out the month of April, average highs are usually in the upper 50s to 60. This means that even though we are going to possibly be as cool as 3-5° below normal, we should remain in the middle to upper 50s across most of the area, so better than the lower and middle 40s we experienced most of March.