FRIDAY AM UPDATE ON JAN 16–17 SNOW THREAT FOR THE MID ATLANTIC & NEW ENGLAND
Sorry I did not get a chance to update in the last 20 hours but I was doing a lot of Commodities grain weather stuff. Sometimes the only update I can get around to doing is over on the wxrisk snowstorm page at Twitter or on the Threads… so during the next three or four days if you need an update for your snow fix please check out these two links.
The new model data (12z models) will be coming out shortly so I will make this quick.
The early Friday morning operational GFS model which (0z run) came out at 11pm Thursday night has a major snowstorm for the Middle Atlantic and New England.** It drops anywhere from 3–9 inches of snow in the Middle Atlantic region mainly east of the Appalachian Mountains and up to 18 inches of snow in New England and 8–12 inches snow from BAL to NYC.
For those of you who start looking at snowfall Maps over the next several days keep in mind that this is going to be a very cold air mass in place across the Northeast quadrant of the country so the snow ratios will not be 10 to 1 but more like 13:1 or 15:1.
In other words if the models are producing 1 inch of liquid it is not going to be 10 inches of snow — it would end up being more like 13 or 15 inches of snow.
IF the Data shows 0.5” of liquid that would normally equate to 5 inches of snow — but in a high snow ratio event 0.5 liquid becomes more like 7 or 8 inches.
What the 0z FRI operational GFS model does is develop a 2ND coastal LOW on Tuesday night January 16th just off the Delmarva Coast. This SECPND LOW Produces eavy snow from Eastern Virginia into New England and really pounds New England with extremely heavy snow. This solution is possible although I am very skeptical about it. There is a specific meteorological reason having to do with the upper air pattern that caused the 0z GFS Model to develop this strange 2nd coastal LOW…. But I am not convinced at all.
The reason WHY his is important is because IF…IF… there is no second Coastal LOW then the snow amounts from Central and Eastern Virginia through the big cities of I-95 into Southeast New England would be cut by at least 50%.
The GFS Ensemble does NOT t have this second Coastal low. It continues to shows a very nice LOW track from just east of Cape Hatteras to south and east of Cape Cod Massachusetts . This would dump significant accumulating snow across western and central NC/ most of VA except for Hampton Roads/ most of MD including DC BAL metroe/ DEL / eastern third of PA/ NJ / southeast 3rd of NY state including NYC and Long Island and most of southern and eastern New England. Interior locations such as WV/ western MD/ central PA/ Binghamton Albany / western Mass/ VT would not see a significant accumulating snow based upon the GFS Ensemble track.
All that being said the 0z Op-European model early Friday morning had a complete Miss.
It has the surface LOW passing well East of Cape Hatteras — it doesn’t bring any rain or snow to anybody not even into Southeast Virginia and Eastern North Carolina.
The European Ensemble however does but it is just a glancing blow with only a few inches in Central North Carolina Eastern and Southeastern Virginia the Delmarva Southern New Jersey and Southeast half of New England.
SUMMARY — yes it’s going to snow in the middle of Atlantic on Tuesday January 16th. the potential exists for several inches but it could only be one or two. further north in New York City New Jersey into New England this could be a significant snowstorm but it might also pass too far to the east. even if I disregard the Operational Friday morning European model is being bogus
The Ensemble tracks of the GFS and the European are pretty far to the east. This strongly implies that Charlottesville could see a lot less snow than Richmond…that Hagerstown would see a lot less snow than Baltimore and DC ….that Allentown would see much less snow than eastern NJ… that NYC would see less snow than Poughkeepsie or Newburgh and that Cape Cod would see a lot more snow than Boston.