January 21th, 2025

 

Today is very cold with the breeze bringing low wind chills.

The extremely cold air is pushing to the Gulf Coast. The storm forming will ride the boundary and bring, the Gulf Coast, across northern Florida and up toward the Outer banks of North Carolina significant snow; parts of this region could see 8-10 inches of very heavy snow, with ice being a major concern as well. For the deep south this will be an historic storm.    

This storm is looking to hug the Southeast Coast, the storm is going to be stronger than it looked to be, so the northern extent of this could bring very light snow into parts of southern Maryland, southern Delaware and southern New Jersey, there is a chance this light snow could clip Cape Cod.

We could see a chance for some snow showers and flurries with the cold front as it continues to approach and push its way south and east. But little to no snow accumulation is expected. Today the frigid air will continue to settle into the region, with the fresh snowpack assisting keeping things cold. Most of the Northeast into the northern Middle Atlantic will be dealing with a mix of clouds and sunny skies. But for those downwind of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario it’s going to be a different story.

Radar shows heavy lake snow bands downwind of both lakes. These bands will continue today. Those downwind of Lake Erie could see another foot or two before the snow band weakens and winds down tomorrow morning. Up here on the Tug Hill, I’ve been getting hit hard. As of this writing I have seen 2.5 to 3 feet of snow. The snow is going to continue to fall into tomorrow afternoon. Bringing another 2-4 feet of snow to the Northern into Central Tug Hill. Some of the Lake snows will reach into the western Adirondacks. These bands will be wavering a bit so those south of the band could pick up a few inches of snow today. Snow should wind down during the afternoon tomorrow.

The gusty winds will be blowing the snow around quite a bit, with snow rates of 2-3 inches per hour, white outs and blizzard like conditions will make driving difficult to impossible.

The brutal cold will stick with us for tomorrow, but winds will be lighter so it might not feel as brutal.  

A weak disturbance will roll through Thursday into Friday, but any snow will be very light. The farther north you are the better your chance of seeing any snow. This disturbance will help push this arctic mass out of the region for Thursday and especially on Friday. Thursday will start cold but temperatures will start to warm during the day. Friday and the weekend will see temperatures closer to seasonal, but they will likely still be below average. Sunday into Monday another weak disturbance will roll through, bringing another risk for general snow showers for parts of the region.

 

As we get into the last few days of January, the pattern is going to be changing, as troughing looks to develop near Alaska and then drop into the Western CONUS. This will change the northern storm track allowing storms to move over the Northwest CONUS, instead of dropping down out of Canada. The trough ridge pattern will set up for a west to southwest flow across the CONUS. This will allow for ridging to start building into the Northeast. So, as we get into February, we could see temperatures become milder.  But this is very long range and things could change, so we will see.