Seaward she goes: Weekend Nor’easter will spare our area
Reports of the early arrival of winter may have been premature after all. A significant coastal storm system, developing this weekend, will move from the Carolina coast to a position east of the Gulf of Maine. As it does so, it will organize off the East Coast and bring periods of showers and gusty winds to our area beaches. But the storm system won’t become truly organized and mature until it is well to the Northeast of our area. As a result of this, the cold air being drawn in behind the system won’t move in until the storm is well past us — and the precipitation that does fall (as rain) isn’t expected to be heavy.
Still, the disturbance is extremely impressive and quite anomalous for this time of year. The initial disturbance swings out from the Tennessee Valley on Friday, and a surface low will develop as a result. The second disturbance is much more impressive, however, surging southward from Canada through the Great Lakes. This shortwave will race through the Tennessee Valley and to a position near the Southern Mid Atlantic Coast late on Friday — bringing 500mb anomalies to nearly -6 standard deviation. It will be, without a doubt, the most anomalous feature on the globe at the time. But the system will shift northeast, a good length behind the initial disturbance, while the surface low pressure remains unorganized.