Been a quiet few days after the New England Blizzard. I’m also in a transitional phase of life, moving from California to the East Coast starting next weekend. So apologies for that, though there hasn’t been much to talk about either. But let’s focus on a couple things. We have a couple main stories to discuss: A mixed precip event this week, followed by more cold, and then the potential for another major East Coast storm. Let’s look them over.
Messy Mix
The map to the left
(click to enlarge) shows the precipitation type being forecast by the NAM model for Tuesday (credit Wxcaster.com: http://wxcaster.com/regional_snowfall.htm). The green is rain, purple/pink is sleet, red is freezing rain/ice, and blue is snow. Notice that as the precipitation moves in and through, especially across the higher terrain north and west of the Big Cities, it starts as an icy mix, before warmer air begins to gradually flood in, changing the mix to rain. The GFS shows a similar scenario, but with more precipitation. Total amounts range from about 1/3″ to 1/2″ liquid on average. So this won’t be a crippling storm, but there could be some localized nasty travel Tuesday and Tuesday night, especially in interior NW Connecticut, parts of NY State (especially south of Albany and north of the NJ border), and possible interior western Massachusetts. Some of the valleys further east in New England could also lock in the cold air at the ground a little longer and may see some localized issues. This looks more like an advisory level event rather than a warning level event. But keep it in mind if you’re traveling Tuesday or Tuesday night.
It will then stay rather cold heading through next weekend. The models seem to have backed off in the last couple days on how serious the cold will be, but it still looks relatively cold for the time being.
Then we have to watch the next area of concern. The map to your right is a forecast from this morning of the European model for next weekend. Yes, that’s a 976 mb low just east of Boston. The GFS model shows a lot of energy, but not quite the major storm scenario…for now. Both models have been showing some sort of storm possible in the Northeast around this timeframe for several runs now. What has to be watched is energy moving into the Western US later this week, likely bringing a quick bout of snow to the Intermountain Region and Rockies. As that progresses east, we’ll see if the pattern still looks ripe for storminess…but there’s a lot of energy around in the atmosphere starting late week or early weekend. This may be what is needed to generate the next round of excitement in the Northeast. Stay tuned.
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