Energy Transfer

SATURDAY MORNING UPDATE:

Normally I wouldn’t be on here talking about a storm I wrote about less than twelve hours ago, but we live along the northeast coast where dynamics of a storm are constantly changing.  It is clear to see what is happening.  If the Delhigh Valley wants to see a good accumulating snow, we need the coastal storm to take over quickly.  Yes, I said Delhigh.

A low last night was coming across Ohio towards Pennsylvania but weakening as it approached the mountains.  That energy from that low would be transferred to the coastal system that would intensify somewhere along the coast and move north.  Try counting all the different factors with this scenario.  I’ll name a few.  When does the transfer take place?  When does the initial low lose energy?  Where does the coastal low form?  What direction does it take?  Throw in temperature gradient and it’s another classic example of a mad guessing game.

This leads me to the following.  If I am wagering a guess I would knock our snow totals down quite a bit.  Enough to where places in and around Philadelphia won’t even see an inch.  I would also say the same for western areas of Chester and Berks.  The reasoning is simple.  The energy transfer is taking place right on top of us.  The initial system barely made it to us.  The secondary low is going to form too far north and east for our area to see much from that either.  The system basically jumped over our region.  What can you do?

The map is the latest run for total precipitation and clearly shows what I was talking about.  The lightest shade of blue is representative of anywhere from a tenth to a quarter inch of liquid.  Equations would say it would equal about 1 to 2 inches of snow.  But on either side of what I circled, the darker blues become larger and darker.  We are stuck in the convergence zone.  

  

The next run is updating right now.  I will post if there are any changes.  I don’t expect there to be.  Looks like a miss for all of us.  By the way I am keeping with my original totals.  That's what I said and that's what I stick with.