January 20th, 2025

 

The yesterday’s storm is heading out toward the Canadian Maritimes. Radar shows the snow move with it; most of the region is seeing dry but breezy conditions; with the exception for those closer to the Great Lakes, where lake effect snow bands are developing. Please let me know how the snow ended up for where all y'all are.

The lake snow developing ahead of the arctic blast will be fairly light today. Today will see muti-bands, but has the setup gets more supportive these will become one band this afternoon. As the winds continue to shift north the bands will set up east of the Lakes, this will set the stage for a few days of heavy lake effect snow, primarily south of Buffalo and areas east of Lake Ontario, off of Lake Erie general snow amounts of 1-2 feet, with 2-to 3 feet under the most persistent band. Off of Lake Ontario a general 2-4 feet of snow is likely, with parts of the tug hill seeing 4-6 feet when all is said and done.

The lake snows will be winding down off of Lake Erie during Wednesday, with the Lake Ontario band beginning to wind down Wednesday evening into Thursday. Snow rates of 2-4+ inches per hour and the gusty winds will create white out and blizzard like conditions, making travel very difficult to impossible.

The next few days are going to see the coldest air of the season. Here are 2-meter, 850 mb and 500 mb GFS temperature charts, from Pivotal Weather, showing the extent of the cold arctic air mass. The cold is going to make it to the Gulf Coast and Florida. We’re going to see low pressure develop in the Gulf just south of Texas, with the cold southeast Texas will see snow and some ice, while southern Texas seeing more in the way of ice. This low will move east, bringing snow and ice to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and northern Florida, snow will be possible even on the Coast. With the strong arctic high to the north, this storm should stay suppressed well to the South, keeping the storm from coming up the Coast, instead it will head out to sea.

GFS's idea on wind chills for the next couple of days

After Wednesday we will start to warm up, with temperatures getting closer to seasonal by the Weekend. But the general below average temperature pattern will be with us for the rest of January. Once the cold starts to lose it grip over the weekend, we could see chances for snow to return Saturday night and Sunday.

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