Relax A Minute

By now we are all aware that there is a very good potential for a major snowstorm to hit the east coast Friday into Saturday.  Many counties from Pennsylvania into New England have had Winter Storm Watches up since earlier today.  Quite frankly that is a bit abnormal as usually these types of things start going up a bit closer to the actual storm.

As of right now only Northampton county has a watch but all of central and northern New Jersey have the same watch.  Philadelphia to Berks to Lehigh might be on the outside looking in for this one.

Let's dive in.

The first question I have and would have if I read this blog was how is this only getting mentioned now?  Well I did mention a Friday system with "more dynamics." So technically I could be given a pass as long as more dynamics means the possibility of a nor'easter with 1-2 feet of snow and high winds.  The actual reason is much simpler.  All that talk about me following the North American model that has been so reliable doesn't work as well as I thought.  This is also why this is a mere hobby.  The model I look at did not pick up this coastal storm.  The European model, which has a better track record for this type of storm, picked it up a few days ago.  That's why the dudes and ladies on TV always wait for model agreement.  Well the one I had been looking at picked it up yesterday.

Now we can look at the set up.

I'll be bold right off the bat.  I don't see a lot of snow for our particular area.  But the high snowfall amounts aren't going to be far away either.  Oh these pesky coastal storms.  I'm sure it will be keeping some meteorologists up all night.  If you live in Connecticut or Massachusetts you can probably expect something around the 20 inch mark.  I don't live there and in this case don't really care.  

Here's what I got.  The storm for us comes in waves.  The first batch to move through looks like snow.  An inch or two with that could be on the high side.  The temperatures then move into the upper 30's so that everything after the first wave would be either a mix or rain.  Models don't show the type of precipitation.  There is also no wrap around snow.  In all the times they mention the possibility of wrap around snow in one of these systems because the cold air comes racing in from behind, it probably averages out to happen about 5% of the time.  The cold air always seems to come in after the precip is long gone.  This assumption is based off the 84 hour model.

The Global run shows something a bit different.  It would go more like this.  Initially we would see snow.  A change to rain would occur with south Jersey getting very heavy rain.  It would intensify with cold air dropping south so New York City would see a solid snowstorm.  As it pulls into New England, cold air would really dive in so that much of eastern PA right to the coast would get a decent snowfall.  This is illustrated below from the model run tonight.

The accumulated snow totals off the same run would be as follows:  (This is directly off the maps, not what I think will or won't happen.)

-- Lehigh Valley, Berks, northern Montgomery and Bucks, Hunterdon:  6-10 inches
-- Chester County, Philadelphia and the immediate suburbs :  3-6 inches

My hope is I have the time to do a similar post using the same models tomorrow since by tomorrow night we should have a clear indication of what we can expect.  Being that we are less than 48 hours away I don't think we should expect a huge difference in what is being predicted now.  I would guess that by tomorrow afternoon we should have an understanding.  But then again, does anybody ever know what is going to happen with these? 

My guess again is that we miss most of this.  My excitement level is pretty low if that tells you anything.  Hopefully I don't get too upset when I see the 20-30 inch pictures coming out of New England.  However, this could be the start of a stormy pattern for the remainder of the month.  Next date to mark on your calendar?  Valentine's Day.