Trending east!

 

Today is mostly dry,  but very cold. Tomorrow is gonna see plenty of sun but it will still be quite cold. Here's a look at the current surface and radar combination chart.

There has been a trend east in the weather models.

Last night's run of the GFS and EURO, courtesy of tropical tidbits

Today's latest runs of the GFS and euro, courtesy of tropical tidbits

Both runs snow the models Are virtually unchanged. and look almost identical with the placement of the closed off 500 mb low sitting down over Georgia. This is much further south than the model's had the placement just a few days ago; when it was kind of centered near the Carolinas.  Both models have energy (kicker) out west. With a 500 mb low vert far south; the kicker will push it off the coast well to the south and east of the Middle Atlantic and New England. This is the reason for that eastern shift were seeing in the models. Which is leading to snowfall forecasted totals to be much less than they were just 24 hours ago. 

GFS

EURO

Model images courtesy of tropical tidbits.

Kurchera snowfall amounts courtesy of pivotal weather

The models show very limited total accumulated precipitation and snowfall. But the air is going be very cold and dry. So there's not gonna be an awful lot of moisture available to produce snow. But with snowfall ratios of 20-1 to 30-1. There would be enough moisture that snow would be accumulating fairly quickly.

If the current model runs are correct This would place the 2" snowfall line across southeast Maryland (across Calvert County up thru Caroline County), through central Delaware and sitting just north of Cape May. The 4" line would be across far southern Maryland (Saint Mary's County) and extreme southeast Delaware. The 8 inch line would be over Worcester County in Maryland. A dusting to less than  1 inch across far western Long Island including possibly New York City  into parts of southeast New York State, Extending down into Pennsylvania Possibly including Philadelphia , a coating to an inch or so also looks possible  for most of Massachusetts, much of Connecticut, large part of Rhode Island including providence. 1-3 inches could fall across  far eastern Massachusetts Including Boston, across far southeastern Rhode Island. 2-4 inches is possible for  southeast Massachusetts south and east of Boston, A general 3-6 inches for the Cape with localized spots seeing 6-8" Nantucket will likely see 6-12+ inches. Snow would graze the Downeast Maine Coast with perhaps 1-3  inches.

The question is can we believe the shift?

It's fairly extraordinary to see that cutoff low this far south in the arctic air mass. Many times in the past we have seen the models correct and come further north in this type of situation. So are the models getting overly excited and overplaying their hand? Maybe. All I can say is I'm not completely buying into what they're saying. I expect by tomorrow we will see that  closed off 500 mb low a little further north. But will the storm come a lot further West in the track? Maybe a little But I don't think it's going to change the general outcome of what we're gonna see here in our region. The storm is gonna stay  far enough off-shore that it will just brush our region with wind and snow along the coast. Winds across New England are going to be 15-25 miles an hour with gust of 30-40 miles an hour. For places like Cape Cod and Nantucket winds will be 30-40 miles an hour with gust of  50-60 miles an hour possible.

Looking ahead to February.

We look to see a major disruption in the polar vortex. 

The polar vortex Is a region of arctic low pressure that circles around the Arctic circle. When this is strong It locks the cold air up over the arctic. When the polar vortex is weak We  tend to see disruptions That Lead to a wavy jet stream and allow cold air over the arctic region to plunge southward into the lower latitudes. 

We look to see a strong sudden stratospheric  event. That looks to completely collapse the polar vortex, Beginning to the polar vortex splitting.

It often takes 5-10 days from the disruption to the release of cold in the lower latitudes. If this collapse does occur; it looks like it will release prolong cold into North America and over Europe.  For here, this looks to bring very cold air Into the eastern 2⁄3 of the United States heading into the middle February and going through the end of February possibly even into the 1st part of March.

Next week we're going to see the temperatures try to moderate a little bit And getting closer to what is considered average for this time of year. But I really don't think it's going to last very long. As the temperatures for the second half of February look to be pretty cold. 

As we get closer to mid month there are signs that that ridiculously strong west coast ridge that's plugged that region all winter is gonna try to flatten out a bit. This will be the result of La Nina continuing to move stronger into neutral territory. During the second half of February the subtropical jet is looking to be quite active. We also look to have Sitting up over Greenland. With the northern jet looking to stay active with plenty of clippers loaded to come down into the eastern US. So I think the Northeast and northern Middle Atlantic is going to continue to see chances for snow and possibly even a few more bigger coastal storms developed during the second half of the month into March.

So basically February looks to be a continuation of what we've seen here in January.

Have a great weekend!