Posted by Dave Longley - 10:15 AM Thursday - I've seen some discussion
on here the past few days about a possible storm later this weekend and
early next week. We were a bit busy keeping up with the wind and
warmth of the past few days. I took some time this morning to
take a closer look. Here's what I came up with.
The Euro continues to advertise some sort of development along the
coast, which it has been doing for several days. Yesterday's 12Z
was downright snowy for us with a strong low in New England. That
was the snowiest scenario I'd seen for a few days. At times the
Euro did get some agreement from other computer models, such as the
UKMET and Canadian.
The other camp was populated by the GFS which developed a fairly strong
low in the Gulf of Mexico and moved it through the SE US and off the
mid-Atlantic coast. High pressure over us would block that low to
our southeast. We'd actually see some light snow Monday and
Tuesday. Not from the coastal low, but from a bundle of energy in
the northern branch of the jet stream.
So what's going to happen? The 00Z Euro wasn't quite as scary as
its predecessor, but nonetheless had a low that it moved from the Outer
Banks of NC late Sunday into the Gulf of Maine by late Monday.
That would spare us the heavy snow, placing it to our east into New
England. The 06Z GFS model has followed suit and has a pretty
identical track and development. These forecasts would bring us a
couple of inches of snow Sunday night/Monday.
Hot off the press, the 12Z NAM has virtually no surface low development
in the Gulf of Mexico, and has a weak low well off the Carolina coast
by late Sunday.
At this point, I'm leaning toward the "southeast of us solution"
I think the Euro is getting too amplified with things, both in the
ridge that it's trying to develop in southeast Canada and the play
between the north and southern branch of the jet stream. These
two things working together are helping to really crank up the
low. I just don't see the phasing of the two jets occurring, and
the southern stream energy, while strong, stays separate of the
northern stream. There is no ridge at all over Greenland, in fact
there's a low, and with the low there and a building ridge in the
southwest Atlantic, the jet is screaming across the western Atlantic,
and this prevents anything from turning the corner and moving north
along the East Coast. We shall see. I'll be curious to see
the 12Z GFS. By the way, the 00Z UKMET and 00Z Canadian GEM were
southeast of us.
Now, for you snowlovers out there, I know you're looking for cold and
snow. I think we'll be able to do the cold part, but I'm not sure
of the snow. The AO is forecast to remain positive, so that means
no blocking pattern in the east and no snowstorm potential.
Meanwhile, the PNA is forecast to go positive. This is a
reflection of a ridge developing in the western part of North
America. This would be able to deliver cold through Canada and
into the northern US. Including here. Without getting into
specifics, I see a cold pattern and potentially dry. For
snowlovers, we'd have to rely more on lake effect snows than
snowstorms. One caveat to this. If the jet doesn't set up
too far to our south, impulses sliding by just to our south, while
we're in the cold, could lay down a few inches of snow with each
passing system.
We shall see what happens. More later today.
