January 3rd, 2025

 

Daily forecast discussion…

Here’s a look at the current frontal chart, radar and satellite imagery.

We can see low pressure tracking west (retrograding) back toward the Hudson Bay. Radar is showing the lake snow continuing downwind of the Great Lakes, including that potent lake band east of Lake Ontario.  There is snow showers up over northern Maine associated with the retrograding low pressure. And we have snow showers advancing out of the Ohio Valley ahead of a weak system heading for the Middle Atlantic Coast. Today winds are down a bit from yesterday, but they’re still going to be breezy, especially across northern New England and near the Great Lakes.

If we look at the Upper Great Lakes, we can see the lake bands are southeast to south of the lakes. As the day progresses, the bands off of Erie and Ontario will do the same, bringing lake snow southeast and then south of Erie and Ontario. The bands should stay in that orientation into Saturday, before coming back north a bit. Those under the most persistent part of the band will see snowfall rates of 1-3 inches per hour, leading to additional snow totals of 6-18+ inches through Saturday night.  The Lake Erie band should weaken tonight into Saturday; but the band off of Lake Ontario will still be going strong on Sunday, The Ontario band should start to weaken Sunday night into Monday.

The weak shortwave trough coming out of the Ohio Valley will move off the Coast and then head for Atlantic Canada and the Gulf of St Lawrence over the weekend. This will bring some light snow for southern Pennsylvania, northern into central Maryland and Delaware. A trace to 3 inches will be possible.  Winds will remain breezy over the weekend.

Then we will be dealing with the system currently coming ashore on the Northwest Coast, for Sunday night and Monday. We will see low pressure develop south and east of the Rockies, then this will develop[ and deepen as it moves east. The basic setup for that storm hasn’t changed all that much from what I laid out yesterday. The models have been waffling north and south as they try to figure out where the confluence zone, I talked about will set up. Right now, it’s still looking to be suppressed south, keeping the heavier snow over the Virginias, southern Pennsylvania and Central New Jersey and points south in the Middle Atlantic.  Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., look to see a few inches to perhaps several inches of accumulation. Across the rest of Pennsylvania and New Jersey (including Trenton) snow showers are more likely with some light accumulation possible, New York City could be on the cusp of seeing some accumulation. The snow could brush the New York State southern tier and parts of southern Connecticut and Rhode Island. Southern Maryland and Southern Delaware could be dealing with sleet and ice out of this, which would reduce snow amounts.  Any track farther north will change the snow/ice shield north with it.

Who sees what will depend on how the shortwave interacts with the dynamics and how the storm will track. as we get into the Weekend, we should get a better idea on what will happen. This storm will be out of here by Tuesday. Then we will be dealing with the very cold conditions, along with a chance for another storm next week.