Not much has changed. It is starting to look as if the warm sector will continue East in active form. Could see a multi day severe weather outbreak from the Plains to the Ohio Valley/dixie alley. People in KS, OK, MO, and AR really need to be paying attention to this.
Original blog post on this:
http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/blog/8/entry-95-early-week-plains-severe-threat/
Looks to be a significant severe weather threat early next week. An area of low pressure is expected to develop and move off the Rockies … as usual with upper level energy approaching/crossing the Rockies. Ahead of this system, there will be an extended period of northward return flow off the Gulf of Mexico … setting the stage for a moist and unstable boundary layer as our system moves in around Monday. A dry line will develop across Western parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.
As the dryline
To start, here's the equatorial zonal wind anomalies so far this spring. Can see the -QBO holding on by its thumbs, with the westerlies starting to descend and near 30mb (first days with a + anomaly since July 2011 WOW)
The current profile fits the 330 degree phase of my "index" pretty well. Descending westerlies above 30mb, easterlies centered around 70mb, and neutral right around 30mb.
The phase I would be keying in on for hurricane season based on average "residence time" is 60 degrees.
Light ... to at times moderate ... snow will continue into the evening hours, as the upper level low moves slowly Eastward. Despite the snow, accumulations have been tough to come by thanks to a combination of above freezing temperatures and the late March sun angle. However, as we move closer to sunset, the snow will accumulate easier (much like we saw yesterday evening) and we could see up to another inch I think in some places. Some slick spots could develop as well later this evening on road
Same general theme, with a slight shift south along the southern edges and a more pronounced southern shift towards the upper part of the map. Risks are generally to the higher side on the southern fringe areas if the models are to be believed (especially if the overnight front-end thump is fairly wet).
The DC-Baltimore-Philly areas are expected to miss out on the more significant accumulations yet again as bothersome low-level temperatures above freezing and March climo. rear their ugly heads.
One of the saving graces with this event is the onset of snow will be overnight, though this did not really help the I-95 corridor and points east during the last event back in the first week of March. Surface temperatures will generally be above freezing in the lower elevations, so these areas will n
While still being a day 5ish event, it is not to early to start looking at some of the possible implications of various models.
At this juncture, we generally have the GFS and the Euro book-ending a possibilities window that includes a cutter to Chicago and a more suppressed system that goes East of Hatteras For the most part been consistently left of the GFS ... with its ensembles a tad to the right of the operational Euro (but no where near the GFS). The 12z GFS Ensembles cut the difference
Here are some maps that I compiled from various sources. Most of the reports came in through the National Weather Service, with a few from this forum and social media reports that passed through quality control.
Snowfall amounts were greatest across the higher terrain of Tolland County. This was due to a persistent band of moderate to heavy snow, as well as the altitude as temperatures were marginal through a portion of the event.
Totals in the Connecticut River valley and the immediate shorel
I don't really expect much snowfall at all tonight. For some continuity and a slight amount of uncertainty, I painted the entire area with 2" or less of snow. Eastern Conn. and northern R.I. have perhaps a 50/50 shot at 1-2": of snow, while the rest of the area has a high probability of receiving less than 1".
Temperatures and moisture look very marginal and although some precipitation should back southern sections of southern New England, I don't see it being a big deal. There may be a few slu
Just a very brief discussion:
Low pressure slowly moves east of the mid-Atlantic coast Wednesday night into Thursday. A relatively broad storm with possible multiple low centers spin around and pinwheel periods of snow (some rain mixing in at the coastal plain) through the region from Wednesday into Friday.
This looks to be an elevation-dependent event, but heavy amounts or precipitation across eastern Mass., eastern Conn. and much of R.I. will help offset some of the "snow losses." In those a
There were some detail changes due to adjustments in the storm track, which mostly affected central/northern PA, southern VA and the Delmarva Peninsula. Higher confidence in the higher snow totals brought some upscale changes to northern VA.
It's still a low confidence forecast overall, with both upside and downside risks across most of the impacted region.
So here we are with another complicated setup and poor model agreement leading to a low confidence forecast. The good news is it looks like DC is finally going to get a decent storm! It only took until March...
Anyway, right now it looks like the biggest risks are along the coast and in PA and southern VA. I'll save some of the more intricate details for the final forecast, but there is going to be some serious issues with the rain/snow line in the lower-total areas to the south, with precip. s
Outside of the hilly terrain across the interior, this snow event does not look like a big deal. I expect 3-6"+ across the east slopes of the Berkshires and much of Worcester County. Connecticut only sees a brief period of rain, with generally 1-3" across the northern hills.
The boundary layer temperatures are simply too marginal for much to change, especially with dew-points in the upper 20's as of early Tuesday evening. Downstream observations don't indicate that cold air damming across New E
What a challenging forecast and I still think the models have more to resolve, mainly on Sunday with respect to enhancement of snow along a trough.
Essentially, a light mixture of rain and snow overspreads the region through later today. Across the lower Hudson Valley, Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, I expect virtually no daytime snow accumulation. Low pressure develops south of the area tonight, but the heaviest precipitation and best lift also stays south.
Some snow
The area of low pressure that we are all watching for winter weather possibilities next towards next weekend, looks as if it may have quite the significant severe weather side as well on Thursday. The area of interest will be from east Texas into Dixie Alley.
As we saw with the last event on Sunday, there looks to be a small area of sufficient moisture return along and ahead of the front across LA, MS, AL, southern AR, and east TX. This area of better moisture/theta-e looks to also be co-locate
Boundary temperatures and snowfall rates will be the two main things to watch tomorrow as a nice looking vort. max passes over the region. Precipitation will start off as rain for most/all of the region tomorrow, with the back end of the system changing over to a heavy, wet snow. The strong vort. max will help dynamically cool the air as decent rates form up along the back part of the storm, but with the boundary layer temperatures remaining at or above freezing, it will be hard to get a lot of
I expect mostly snow for just about all of southern New England (pictured on this map). Although there may be a brief mixture along the I-95 corridor in Conn./RI, I expect crashing temperatures and heights to bring a wind-driven snow right down to the coast and into eastern Long Island.
As far as snowfall totals go, I think that higher ratios will help push NW Conn. and W Mass. to 20"+. Further east, heavy precipitation will offset somewhat lower ratios for 20"+ from IJD to BOS. There is still
Much more aggressive with the totals this time around, but there is still more upside risk than downside to the forecast.
I went with a rough 50/50 blend of the GFS and Euro, with some personal touches here and there. NAM's still out to lunch with it's QPF and snow totals, so I didn't even bother with it. There's going to be some winners and losers in the low-end/mix areas as the details work themselves out. The bulk of the snow across northern MD, southern PA and southern NJ will be during t
I just want to quickly share my latest thoughts for Connecticut and surrounding areas.
There's little doubt that a strong storm with plenty of precipitation will impact the tri-state area and southern New England Friday into early Saturday, but there are still a few details to discuss.
Concern #1:
Mixing along the shoreline. An initially "warm" boundary layer may cause mixed precipitation to fall near the Connecticut shoreline and coastal Rhode Island for several hours. With that said, as lo
As I am sure most are aware, it looks like we will have significant to major nor'eater on our hands for the Thursday-Saturday time frame. While our friends up north look to clobbered, we will unfortunately be getting screwed.
The main issue with this event for our area is going to be temps. High pressure to the north will keep cold air in place for the beginning of the event (Thurs night) ... with temps likely ranging from the upper 20s/around 30 (West of Blue Ridge) to lower/mid 30s (Leesburg,
Just going to start off by saying that forecast confidence is lower than normal. Miller B type storm will form up late tomorrow into Friday and will initially cause mixing/temp issues across the more southern areas. As the coastal intensifies, banding on the back edge of the system could bring locally higher totals from central PA to NJ, NY and maybe even down into northeast MD and northern DE. There's plenty of risk in either direction, especially across central PA into NJ and NYC/LI.
I didn
The big consensus among model guidance at this point is that a piece of energy from the trough over the Northwest Pacific will jump to the Gulf of Alaska by Wednesday morning, then drop southeastward into California Thursday night into Friday.
Similar to the last event, there is a weak disturbance in the southern stream that gets ejected out ahead of the trough dropping into the Southwest ... and able to lift northeastward as the polar vortex over southeast Canada retreats poleward. So the resu
