Euro shows first Big City Snow next Wednesday?

[Ed Mahmoud]

Euro shows an impressive Nor'Easter on the East Coast mid next week.



The Penn State Euro, which shows 850 mb freezing line and 540 dm thickness line, only goes to Day 7, so I can't tell whether the Nor-Easter with 850 mb winds in excess of 30 m/s (over 60 knots) would be rain or snow on the coast, but it is December now, and it looks like the surface low (hard to tell in 1 day time steps) will pass near/Southeast of the 40º/70º benchmark, so potentially the first Big City snow of 2008.

[Stephanie]

COOL!

[Nimbus]

The track was a little further west inland on todays run. With northeasters its often not until we know if/where a low actually forms off the mid atlantic coast that we get a reliable track forecast.

[Ed Mahmoud]

12Z Euro suggests you may not have to wait until Wednesday for snow, as it seems to suggest a surface low Sunday passing Southeast of the benchmark


(PSU version with RH, thickness and 850 mb temps)

For Wednesday, looks like cold air is moving into place with a surface low developing in the Southeast.


Euro web site goes beyond 7 days
Sunday morning


Thursday morning- low may track too far East for big snows in the cities...

[Ed Mahmoud]

Canadian suggests NYC gets robbed, but upper system takes on a negative tilt, and holds the surface low close enough to the coast for decent (not exciting) snow for Eastern New England.

School cancellation in New England looks unlikely.



ETA: sadly, the Patriots are at Seattle.

[Stephanie]

It still has a way to go. This is a typical winter forecast for the East Coast - will it or won't it be close enough to the coast and how cold will it be?

[Stephanie]

The forecast for the temperatures around the Philadelphia are is for the high 50's. Rain for me with this one.

Had light snow last evening and night. Only accumulation was on the lawns, trees and lawn furniture. Pretty much a light dusting and today the winds are howling.

[jimvb]

To me it seems like we will not get wintry precipitation (central Virginia). The official NOAA forecast is:

Wednesday and Wednesday Night
Cloudy with showers likely. Highs in the lower 60s. Lows in the upper 30s. Chance of rain 70 percent.
Thursday
Cloudy with a chance of rain in the morning...then partly sunny in the afternoon. Much cooler with highs in the lower 40s. Chance of rain 30 percent.

That's because the Wakefield forecaster says this:

Larger uncertainties exist late Wednesday night through Thursday. The GFS in previous runs had held the front over our southern Zones (and even waving back over the area as a low dvlps and mvs NE-ward). This is similar to the current ECMWF but now the latest GFS has changed its tune and clears pops out thurs morning. Have Decided to slightly increase pops during the day on thurs but Again nothing too drastic due to uncertainty. Also maintained Warmer temps Thurs morning and leave out mention of mixed Precip...although if the cold air does arrive earlier (as we were Seeing on yesterday`s runs)...we may have so p-type issues to deal With.

[Nimbus]

Could be a major snow storm for Maine. The genesis point for this event has been shifted further south with deep moisture being drawn in from the gulf. If the cold front were to stall just 200 miles further east the mid atlantic states could get snow instead of rain. What is amazing is that the Euro picked up on this event over 200 hours out!

[Stephanie]

I always felt that the majority of the models were usually on to something when a forecast 7 - 10 days out called for a storm. Most of the time though it's either over or under exaggerated.

I have a forecast for the upper 50's with a windy rainstorm. It's still early for us.

[CajunMama]

The board sure did pick up!

[angelwing]

Wish this flood watch we're under would be a snow storm watch, I heard they think we might get up to 4 inches of rain; if I figured it out right that would have been 32" of snow!!!...dang it!

[Ed Mahmoud]

Not sure how much actually formed on trees and powerlines, but Albany, NY received 1.55 inches of rain with temps ranging from 28ºF to 32ºF.


That'll bring down some trees and powerlines.


I lived in Saratoga Springs back when I worked for Ronald Reagan.

[Stephanie]

The board sure did pick up!

It did now, didn't it???

We had almost 4 inches of rain as well. You're right, angelwing. If it was snow, we'd be digging out of this one for a while. Driving home last night was horrible! It just seemed like the rain came down harder and harder. You could barely see the lines in the road.

I thought I read that New England and Upstate New York had almost 1 million people without power due to the ice storm. I'm sure glad we didn't get any of that!