Another Weekend…Another Nor’easter.

If you've stepped outside you know it's still windy and cold. We will see off and on flurries. As the low moves to the east; the region will dry out over the next 12-18 hours. This is all thanks to the strong Canadian high pressure area. Today the Heart Land will be dealing with a Blizzard. Also Severe weather will be on tap for Texas into the Southeast Today and tomorrow. The system bringing the blizzard to the Plains will move into the Great Lakes and weaken. Even so, the Upper Lakes will still see quite a bit of snow tomorrow. Some of the moisture will make it into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast tomorrow night. It should be cold enough around here for a mix of snow, sleet and /or rain. But precipitation amounts will be on the light side.  

Over the weekend, another storm will take shape in the Southeast. On Saturday, moisture from the South Atlantic states should stream up along the coast, energy from the weakening system will transfer into the area. The storm system that develops will strengthen off the Middle Atlantic. Right now, it looks to become a significant coastal storm by late Saturday This growing storm should cause rain in Philadelphia and New York City in Saturday, then transition into a  snow producer for much of New England by Saturday night/early Sunday.  

A major key to what happens over the Northeast this weekend; will have to do with an arctic disturbance and a polar disturbance; how these interact will determine how fast the coastal intensifies. If we see a very week interaction the storm will go well east on New England. On the other hand, if there's a lot of interaction the storm could bomb, bringing New England a sufficient snowstorm.   Each of these disturbances are fairly intense, and entering into an area favorable to storm development.  

Often a strong Nor'easter will draw in its own cold air, So the merging of the cold air will disturbances, and cold air/land of the Northeast, will contrast with the Gulf Stream and much warmer ocean, increasing instability, this boundary would also aid in intensification.  

So I'm thinking this will be Northeast Storm.


The Models:

The models are in fairly good agreement on this storm.




  
NAM


 
GFS


 

 EURO


 

UKMET


     Here is how things look like on the Euro. But the other models are quite similar.


   

We could be dealing with a lot of severe weather in the Southeast. From here the disturbance will move to southern Mid Atlantic coast.

   

Here is where the energy transfer from the weakening storm over the Great Lakes will take place.


      


Everyone is interested in how much snow will fall. That is not completely clear at this time. Where the coastal front sets up will be a major factor in who sees what. The mixing line could give Eastern and Southern New England a rain/snow/mix. whereas areas north of the Massachusetts Turnpike into Southern Maine and parts of Western New England well see more in the way of heavy snow. There is a shot that parts of Eastern New York State could see plowable snow as well. Central New York State will be on the outside fringe. Areas like the Mid Atlantic, New Jersey, New York City, Long Island, and Rhode Island look to see mostly rain. However, any wobble east or west would have a major impact on who sees heavy snow.

This may not be the last storm we have to deal with over the next few weeks...The pattern is active and it is full of possible storms.


And please don’t ask for what’s in my backyard forecast, it’s just too early to know.    

That’s all for now, please follow my Facebook weather page for other updates.      


Rebecca        

Will we have another Nor’easter?

This is the a brief look at how the setup is looking for the possible nor'easter this coming weekend. The analysis Is based on the GFS charts. But I try to outline what must happen if we want a snowstorm.


In this image you can see the yellow line showing where the trough is located, from the Great Lakes, over the Midwest, and down into Texas, In the first image below we show you this for the date of the 13th.  The shaded 500 MB heights show a trough elongated back over the Midwest.  This is showing a lot of moisture on the east side of the trough with no real defined area of low .







 

This image shows the locations of the northern and southern streams. There is a strong southern jet; this is moving a lot of moisture into the Southeast. You can also see the northern stream . at this point is a little weak. This is allowing the southern stream to gather lots of moisture, If the northern stream ends up interacting. The system would intensify things a bit sooner and allow the storm to come closer to the coast. Possibly enough to affect the parts of the Northeast. If we don't see any interaction everything would push to the east and out to sea. with little to no affect in the Northeast. 


      



On the 14th the this 500mb vort wind chart , shows the streams starting to interact. This is what we must see, if you want any snow . The timing is going to be critical. So we will have to pay close attention to the Clipper dropping out of Canada. Depending on how fast it moves and how much it deepens will have a big impact on what will happen on Valentine's Day. If we can see interaction early enough; the system will track more westward and further inland. Which in turn would cause rain/snow over coastal areas of the Mid Atlantic and Northeast. With snow across the Mid Atlantic and Northeast inland areas.


      

 

Here is a look at the GFS surface chart. The GFS is looking a lot better than it was yesterday.

 
 

Here Is the NOGAPS. It is showing a very solid hit.
   

The GGEM is looking decent as well    




Here’s the 12Z EURO. it is the outer at this point. having a track way to the south and OTS. Remember the Euro nailed the last system. Normally the Euro is the better winter model when it comes to tracking storms along the East Coast. So I guess, we will see how it trends over the next few days.





This last chart shows the 200mb level. you can see the southern jet is really amped up….IMO this is favoring the other models view of things……….But the Euro could be right.   Looking out past this weekend, the models are tracking another possible major Northeast Storm for the timeframe of 17-19 February. Looking out even further, The teleconnections are showing possible cold air outbreaks for February 21-25 and February 27- March 3rd. So like I said in my winter outlook and several times on my Facebook weather page, the second half of winter would be quite active.    


Well that’s it for now.    


Rebecca

End of week storm.

It’s been awhile, so I thought I would do a small write up on the possible coastal this Friday. It’s too early to talk amounts. I feel it would be irresponsible to do so, We will have to watch the trends and see….I will take a bite at the apple tomorrow…..and start talking snow amounts. For now this is just a general outlook on how things stand at this time. I started talking about this a few days ago…But based on how the Euro is looking and how the other models are trending, I thought it wise to start and bring you all up to speed, so you can prepare   

Thursday we will see a Clipper pulling out of the Great Lakes, at the same time there will be a  storm forming over the Gulf States and start to move northeast. As for a storm, everything will hinge on how much the northern and Southern systems interact with each other. So, depending on how this all intensifies we could see a significant snowstorm. The Euro is still holding its ground and showing a major snowstorm. The Euro has been very consistent over several runs showing phasing of the northern and southern streams. If the Jets phase it keeps things cold and allows southern moisture to move farther north. Which makes for a big snowstorm.   

Until last night the other models weren't agreeing with the Euro's assessment. That changed when the models moved toward the Euro's idea of what this storm would be like. The 00 and 06 GFS took a fairly major step towards the Euro. The GFS has moved north as have other models like the Canadian.

 

Euro for Friday

   

Euro for Saturday
    

GFS for Friday
   

GFS for Saturday
   

GFS Ensemble for Friday  

The Euro and GFS are showing a large moisture plume into Northern NYS and NE.

So we all should see a widespread snow event. depending on the track, we could several inches in northern areas of the Northeast. Right now the track looks to be east of Cape Cod.....     

 

The GFS shows a significant snowstorm for Eastern New England, with western New England and eastern NYS seeing at least a moderate snow event. The Euro is showing an even bigger snowstorm. A track east of Cape Cod would place the western Adirondacks, western Mohawk Valley, and Tug Hill on the fringe of the disturbance, which would mean light snow....Just a few inches at most.  The situation is very fluid and can / well change over the next few days. Depending on the exact track this could be a major hit for all of us, some of us, or none of us.

     

Still watching the possibly of a Valentine's Day storm. There looks to be a bit of warming to start next week then we will see things start to cool off.....mid to end of the week, which would correlate with the storm moving into the region....but before we can talk about next week, let's get though this coming Friday first.     

 

 

That’s it…I will have more later…I will post some updates on the blog and others on my weather page.  

Rebecca