Cold Air Wins

I touched on the storm briefly before but as we see the winter storm watches posted I feel we all have an understanding of what is headed our way tomorrow.

I mentioned last time that we seem to be on the warm side of the storm by quite a large distance.  We still are on the warm side except the distance shrunk and there is another huge factor.  I've said it before and will say it again.  It's really really hard to have this kind of cold air in place with lows near zero roughly 12 hours before a storm system is coming and get warm air to take over.  Cold air is dense and will win a lot of battles.  The main reason you see ice or sleet is because warm air made a push into the cold air.  The warm air didn't overtake the cold air.  It managed to slither into various layers of the atmosphere to turn snow into rain.  The cold air at the surface turns it back to ice or slightly above the surface in cases of sleet.

Let's hit the maps.

 
30 HR GFS model shows a nice heavy band of snow working through. 

Predicted snowfall staying consistent at 5 inches for almost all with small pockets of 6 or 7 and closer to 3-4  near the NJ border.

NAM model is a beast for our area. 



This is the second image after the initial heavy snow that moves through as shown in the GFS above.  The NAM model keeps us in heavier snow longer which is why the total is higher.

Euro has the exact same totals as the GFS with all areas in the five inch range.

Considering a few days ago it looked like mainly a rain maker this one has changed considerably.  That's why these are interesting to watch.  I think there are elements to both of the models that make sense.  There is a question whether this will ever change over to rain.  If it does it will be brief.  It also arrives earlier than anticipated which really helps hang on to that cold air.  I lean towards higher amounts of the ranges especially if we can lock into the cold air without getting too close to the freezing mark where ratios will go down.  As of right now we are actually in one of the better spots for snow locally as we sit in the heaviest precipitation.

It won't be the biggest snow of the season, but I think it slides into the second spot.  I also believe like the maps indicate there will not be a huge difference between Reading and Allentown aside from higher locations.

Allentown - 6.4