Posts

John Homenuk

2/8 Afternoon Zones: Significant snow likely Thursday

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Significant snow is expected on Thursday, as a low pressure system moves from the Mid Atlantic to a position east of the New Jersey coast. The low pressure system will deepen rapidly, as a result of increasingly favorable dynamics in the atmosphere’s mid and upper levels. As the storm moves off the coast of New Jersey, bands of very heavy precipitation are expected to rotate inland, resulting in widespread heavy snow.

The event will begin as mixed precipitation, especially in Southeastern New Jersey and along the area coasts. Elsewhere, the mixed precipitation should transition fairly rapidly to snow, which will quickly become steady and eventually very heavy. Dynamic cooling will change rain and mixed precipitation to snow gradually in all areas, slowest over portions of Southern New Jersey on Thursday morning.

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John Homenuk

Afternoon All Zones: Significant snowfall increasingly likely Thursday

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Forecast models have trended in favor of a stronger, more impactful storm system moving through the Mid Atlantic states on Thursday, and confidence is increasing in a significant snowstorm for a large majority of the forecast area. The potential exists for 9-12″ of snow in parts of the area, and higher amounts cannot be ruled out where bands of heavier snow develop.

The story of the storm system begins over the Midwest states, where a disturbance in the mid levels of the atmosphere develops on Wednesday. This energy moves eastwards from the Midwest through the Ohio Valley, and eventually to a position off the Mid Atlantic Coast. As it does so, interaction with a disturbance in the northern jet stream will cause the energy to deepen.

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Miguel Pierre

AM All Zones Update on Potential Snowstorm Late Wednesday Night into Thursday

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A storm system tracking over the Great Lakes, will bring some periods of rain with possibly freezing rain over Interior this morning. Some very mild and record breaking temperatures also possible on Wednesday. But more attention is already on possible snowstorm starting late Wednesday night and last into Thursday. Details are still yet to be ironed. But confidence is growing on moderate to significant snowfall for parts of the area.

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Doug Simonian

Significant snowstorm likely near the coast on Saturday

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The rollercoaster with the model runs has continued today, with regards to Saturday’s winter storm. However, for the most part, guidance continues to trend west, and there are some reasons to believe that will continue. There is still a limit as to how far west this can go, though, and the cutoff to the west looks pretty sharp, so this may only be a “major” snowstorm for Eastern Long Island. Still, it’s looking like a snowier Saturday than first thought a few days ago.

Generally speaking over the past few days, the models have become much more impressive with the strength of the initial shortwave that entered the US from the Pacific. It’s now in the southern stream and tapping into a lot of Gulf of Mexico moisture, leading to some strong thunderstorms in the deep South. Sometimes what happens here is that once the models realize that there is plenty of convection going on, the latent heat in the atmosphere increases, which leads to higher heights along the East Coast and thus further northwest shifts. This appears to be happening in today’s model guidance.

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