It’s really uncanny how the very dry weather pattern has continued in this area despite the succession of major storms that have moved to the west and south.

Now that north has become a synonym for sunshine and south has become a synonym for rain, there’s no way that this extremely dry weather pattern can change at least for the next four weeks.

March was the third straight month with below normal precipitation, and it looks like April will also turn out to be drier than normal.

Temperatures were near normal in March, with precipitation around an inch below normal.

On Friday a major storm will move to the Ohio Valley, while high pressure builds southward from eastern Canada. Skies will be partly sunny with highs from 55 to 60 degrees.

When it’s warmer to the north and cooler to the south, it’s so easy to get into an extremely dry weather pattern in Otsego County. The weather forecast in last week’s weather column was more optimistic than other local weather forecasts, but the weather was actually much better than even we predicted.

The jet stream will shift southward this week and a series of low pressure systems will move well to our south.

Exactly as we predicted at the beginning of the month, it was one of the driest Februaries on record in Otsego County and throughout most of central and eastern New York. Thanks to the extreme upside-down temperature pattern with much warmer weather in Montana than in Georgia, and strong winds on Monday and Tuesday, an extremely dry weather pattern will be the theme for at least the next two to three weeks.

Exactly as we’ve been predicting for the past month, this is turning out to be an exceptionally dry February - one of the driest on record in central and eastern New York.

In last week’s weather column we predicted a continuation of the very dry weather pattern.

Not only did we completely miss the snowstorm that affected the New York City area, the exceptionally dry weather pattern will continue right through most of next week, with no major storms anywhere in sight.

Although there’s no mild weather in sight, at least temperatures will be close to normal during the upcoming week.

Thanks to the wild northwesterly jet stream that continues to bring arctic air far to the south from northern Canada to the southeastern states, while a stationary high covers the western third of the nation and brings record warmth from California to Montana, we’ll get generally dry weather in Otsego County. This has been a very cold January, as the highest temperature so far this month— only 35 degrees on the 5th at our weather station in Otego.

Instead of moving from west to east, during the past week the jet stream has been diving southward from northern Canada to the northern Great Plains, along the east side of a large ridge of high pressure that has remained stationary over the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies.

The combination of a northwesterly flow aloft and a series of Alberta clippers, will maintain a cold weather pattern in Otsego County through this second week of 2009.

After arctic cold and series of snowstorms during the past week, we’ll get into a much milder weather pattern, as the storm track shifts to the west and the very cold air stays from the northern Rockies to the northern Great Plains.

The first eight days of December averaged about four degrees colder than normal in our region, with a strong northwesterly jet stream bringing very cold air southeastward from northern Canada.

Precipitation was less than half of normal across our area in November. The total precipitation was only 1.44” at our weather station in Otego.

It felt more like the middle of winter during the six days from Tuesday through Sunday, as temperatures stayed below 30 degrees, averaging 10 to 15 degrees below normal.