Historic Blizzard on the Way! One We'll Talk About for Decades!

Good Morning,

It appears that we're on the precipice of a winter storm that will be of historic proportions in the Northeast, while there will also be parts of the mid Atlantic region that will miss out on snow entirely later today and tonight…

The morning rush hours aren't going to be disrupted in any big way by the snow and rain, which will be arriving near (or shortly after) daybreak in most of the big cities located along the I-95 corridor between Philadelphia and Boston… With this in mind, we must remember that those various Blizzard and Winter Storm Warnings, which have been issued and mostly start at 6 a.m., have this start time for a reason — most businesses and schools that were planning on opening today should re-think this decision…

Weather conditions will deteriorate very rapidly this afternoon, and the thought process that has been applied was: "People will have a very hard time getting home if they're still out after 2 or 3 o'clock this afternoon…"

The temperature will be in the 30s in most places today, and obviously those places which do remain a few degrees above the freezing mark for several hours, and are not experiencing heavy precipitation, have just as much of a chance of seeing rain as they do some wet, slushy snow…

In fact, this seems imminent across southern New Jersey, in southeastern Pennsylvania, much of Maryland and Delaware… But, areas which are located 40-60 miles farther inland are forecasted to have boundary layer temperatures near 32 degrees throughout the day, so these places are those which are the most likely to get mostly snow before nightfall — and perhaps a slushy coating to an inch or two on paved and unpaved surfaces…

As a low pressure system which was located in northwestern Ohio begins to weaken this afternoon in western parts of upstate New York and in Pennsylvania, a secondary area of low pressure, or the "coastal low", will begin to take shape…

It is expected to intensify rapidly over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean early tonight, and a sudden drop in the barometric pressure between 3 and 11 p.m. should cause the winds to increase… Those winds along the immediate coast tonight and early tomorrow morning could gust as high as 50 or 60 mph, while most of the cities located along the I-95 corridor will only encounter gusts of up to 40 or 45 mph during the height of this storm…

Coastal Flood Warnings have also been posted for much of the Northeast, because tides will be running a couple of feet above normal during the high tide cycles late today and tonight… This is a sometimes overlooked, but still a serious issue, because of the devastation to the coastline that "Sandy" caused a little over three months ago…

There were some adjustments made to the snowfall accumulation forecasts last evening, and we'll continue to run with these early this morning (maps will be included in our forecast package)… This has more to do with the "consistency" that the European global model has been showing us all week long, and not the solution that the 0z N.A.M. portrayed last night, showing that, for example, New York City could see more than 20 inches of snow… Our belief is that, since this form of guidance didn't even show this storm yesterday, it can't completely be trusted now…

But with a general 1-2 inches of liquid equivalent expected to be churned out by the winter storm, and more than half of that total occurring in the form of snow or sleet, there ought to be a good 6-12 inches of snow that falls from New York City on north and west by early tomorrow morning… On Long Island, as well as in Connecticut and for the rest of southern and central New England, this will probably be a storm that will be talked about "for decades", with 18 to as much as 30 inches of snowfall by midday tomorrow…

In the wake of the storm tomorrow, a gusty northwesterly wind will still cause some blowing and drifting, hindering the clean-up efforts to some degree… Sunday should be a much calmer day, and also fairly sunny… Despite some minor precipitation threats early next week, it will also become milder…

Have a good weekend!