High pressure
is protecting most of the region from a disturbance to our north. Other than
clouds and some isolated rain over far northern areas, today and tomorrow look
to be tranquil. Today temperatures are more or less what we would expect for
this time of year. They will become a bit milder for tomorrow.
Surface
Chart, Radar and Satellite
I and most other outlets have talked about the potential for snow in the Northeast for the end of this week. So, the question, is how big a deal will it be.
Big snow in November
snow isn’t unheard of, but it does happen from time to time. But to get a lot
of measurable snow a lot of things have to come together. The biggest thing is
cold. We’re going to see temperatures fall, this could be the coldest air so
far this season for some of us. But this won’t be arctic air; instead, the
amount of cold air looks to be marginal, and won’t be enough to cause
widespread snow across the region. The
other things that are key are storm track and storm intensity.
We do have
shortwave energy in the northern Plains and a piece of energy in the southern
Plains. Both of these are going to combine into a bigger storm. As the northern
component moves into the Ohio Valley the southern component will be working
into the Southeast, energy from the primary will transfer to the coast and both of this will become a Miller B Nor’easter the end of
the week. I talked a lot about Miller B and other types of Nor’easters in my
winter outlook so check them out.
Wednesday night
into Thursday morning clouds will be increasing and rain showers will move into
western parts of the region, as things start to come together. So, it should be
a pleasant day for Veterans Day!
Then we will
be seeing the cold front approach and move in for Thursday and Friday. Behind
the cold front, temperatures will drop into the 30s and 40’s for later Thursday
and Friday morning. Rain will be
widespread across most of the region; Maine will hang onto the drier conditions
into Friday afternoon. As the storm develops to our south and east winds will
become gusty with gust of 30-40mph at the coast and gusting to 15-25 mph in the
interior. The winds will make for waves of driving rain and higher elevation
snow showers during our Thursday. For elevations below 1000 feet this will be primarily
a rain event, with a chance for some wet snow to mix in, as temperatures look
to be too warm for much in the way of snow. Snow will start Thursday night into Friday across western areas;
this will be especially true for northwest Pennsylvania into New York State and
northwest New England. Along the coast no accumulation is likely. The lower elevations of central and northern
Pennsylvania along with central New York State could pick up a coating to
perhaps an inch or so. Those elevations over
1000 feet could pick up minor accumulations of 1-3 inches of snow, while the
elevations over 2000 feet have a chance for more in the way of accumulating
snow. Those with the best chance of
seeing these higher accumulations will be in the Pocono and Catskill Mountains, the
higher terrain of the Tug Hill, Adirondacks, Greens into the Berkshires. The highest elevations in these areas could
see 3-8 inches of snow with higher amounts possible for some. things will linger into Saturday.
The global models are still at odds, with the Euro trending wetter, with the GFS even wetter and snowier. But both models do show snow for interior parts of the Northeast. The model track trend is farther south and east then it was yesterday. These accumulations I’m showing are my feel of a blend of the models I’m looking at, there not really a forecast, but more in the way of giving you an idea of what could happen, I’ve been getting a lot of accumulation questions, so I wanted to try to take an early stab at it.
The exact
track is still to be determined, so these amounts could go up or down as the
situation evolves.
