7:00 AM | ***A major east coast storm threat for Wednesday night and Thursday with the potential of significant snow***

6-Day Forecast

Today

Mostly sunny skies, cold, highs near freezing

Tonight

Partly cloudy, very cold, lows in the upper teens

Tuesday

Mostly sunny, cold, mid-to-upper 20’s

Tuesday Night

Partly cloudy, very cold, low-to-mid teens for lows

Wednesday

Increasing clouds, cold, snow likely at night, upper 20’s

Thursday

Cloudy, snow likely, possibly mixed with ice or rain at times, mid 30’s

Friday

Partly sunny, cold, upper 30's

Saturday

Mostly cloudy, cold, upper 30's

Discussion

Our active weather pattern continues this week with the threat for a major east coast storm on Wednesday night and Thursday that could generate significant snow from DC-to-Boston. One of the indications that suggests there will be a major storm along the east coast later this week has to do with what occurred this weekend in the Far East. Some may have heard that Tokyo, Japan had 20 inches of snow - one of their biggest storms in years - and a deep trough of low pressure in the Far East often translates to a deep trough in the eastern US several days later. While a strong storm is likely, some details still have to be ironed out with respect to precipitation-type. The rain/snow line during this storm is likely to start off between the big cities along the I-95 corridor and the coastline and it could back westward into the big cities allowing for snow to mix with sleet and/or rain at times on Thursday which would have an important impact on ultimate snow accumulation amounts. In fact, one factor going against an all-snow event in the big cities is the positioning of the high pressure to the north during this storm time period as it looks like it will move off the Northeast US coastline which will make it more difficult - though not impossible - to stay as all snow in the I-95 corridor. Another still-to-be-resolved detail is the fact that the main US computer forecast model, Global Forecast System (GFS), currently has a storm track quite far off the east coast with minimal impact around here whereas other models have the storm riding right up the east coast with a significant impact on the region. The GFS model is probably exhibiting its usual "southeast" bias in east coast storm tracks and will likely pull the storm closer to the east coast as the event time nears. Stay tuned, today's video has a detailed breakdown of several different model runs from last night including the GFS, NAM, European and Canadian.

Video

httpv://youtu.be/EYulJLA4aJ8