The arctic cold wave that we've been dealing with since late on Monday evening will continue to hold us under its firm grip over the next few days... If there's one, small consolation, it is that there is very little wind out there early this morning...
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And, most temperatures have managed to stay in the teens in New York City and along the coast overnight... There are several outlying areas (Sussex, N.J. and Poughkeepsie to name just a couple) which are in the single digits early this morning, but their winds as of 3 a.m. were also dead calm...
Parts of the Tri-State Area have also had some clouds overnight, which have been much more common in southern sections as opposed to many of the northern suburbs... The reason why, is that there has been a vigorous impulse of upper-level energy sliding across the mid Atlantic states overnight, which has managed to bring snow to cities like Baltimore and Washington, D.C. — and there'll probably even be some accumulating snow before 7 a.m. across southern Delaware and in extreme South Jersey (mostly around Atlantic City and Cape May)... This snow will by-pass the City and all of its adjacent suburbs, but we firmly believe that the wind will begin to pick up again by midday today... That increase in the wind speeds, which will average 10-20 mph with gusts of up to 30 or even 35 mph likely this afternoon, will take temperatures that are mostly in the lower 20s and make them "Feel Like" they're in the single digits and the lower teens...
Find out what's happening in Greenwichwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Tonight, under a clear to partly cloudy sky, the winds should diminish... However, it will still be quite cold with temperatures dropping into the single digits above zero in most outlying areas and the lower or middle teens in the big cities...
Tomorrow, some sun for a while should start to fade behind increasing clouds... And, as we've been talking about all week long, there is some snow anticipated tomorrow — the vast majority of it will occur very late in the day (probably during the middle of the p.m. rush) and during the early nighttime...
The "screaming message" that we tried to get across yesterday was that the snowfall amounts would not be all that impressive — and that still seems imminent: A general 1-3 inches is expected, primarily between the hours of 4 p.m. and midnight... While we think there will be more places that wind up with AN INCH in the Tri-State Area as opposed to 2 or 3 inches, there are a couple of things that we have to keep in mind:
1.) With temperatures having been as low as they have been, and only expected to be in the lower 20s tomorrow afternoon, anything that falls will stick to all surfaces (both paved and non-paved) very quickly...
and
2.) Even though the global models are only bringing around 0.05" to 0.10" of 'liquid equivalent' precipitation to the region, the solid to liquid ratios will be very high... In other words, even if Central Park picked up just 0.07" of liquid like the 00z run of the European global model implies, that could translate into 1.4 inches of snow...
The reason that there isn't going to be a "bigger storm" coming, has to do with the lack of any sufficient blocking in the Atlantic or Greenland (no positive NAO), and also there will not be any kind of decent "phasing" taking place between energy that is located in both the northern and southern branches of the jet stream...
We DID COVER THIS ground yesterday, but it is worth mentioning once again... A relatively weak and fast-moving body of low pressure simply won't be able to produce the kind of snow that, for example, many coastal storms do... However, those bigger, more powerful coastal storms also tend to follow a track that pulls in mild maritime air, and this one won't be doing that...
On Saturday and Sunday, temperatures will be moderating just a bit, but we're being cautious about just how much of a "bump" we want to show between the two weekend days... For example, we're going with a high of 30 on Sunday, even though other sources would lead you to believe that it'll be going ABOVE FREEZING on Sunday afternoon... New model guidance last evening (including the G.F.S. that typically has a warm bias), is implying that it'll only be in the upper 20s to around 30... So, we're sticking with 30 for now... We should finally "snap out of the deep freeze" early next week.
Have a good day!!!
