12:15 PM | ***Active pattern continues…weekend storm favors snow across interior Mid-Atlantic…Tuesday/Wednesday storm threatens with heavy rain, interior snows, potential damaging winds***

An active weather pattern over the next ten days will bring copious amounts of precipitation to the eastern half of the nation. This raises the concern of localized flooding; especially, in areas that are now or will become snow-covered. Map courtesy NOAA, tropicaltidbits.com

Overview

The active weather pattern of recent days will continue during the next several across the eastern half of the nation. A winter storm will impact the Mid-Atlantic region this weekend with accumulating snows across interior sections and a mixture of precipitation in the big cities along the I-95 corridor. Another storm system will impact a large part of the eastern half of the nation in the Tuesday/Wednesday time frame and this one looks like a powerhouse. It is likely to feature very heavy rainfall, interior accumulating snows, and potentially damaging winds with power outages on the table in many states. If that isn’t enough, there may be another strong storm system to deal with in the eastern states by the early part of next weekend.   

The weekend storm system will favor accumulating snow across the interior sections of the Mid-Atlantic region and a mix in the metro regions along I-95. Map courtesy NOAA, tropicaltidbits.com

Weekend system

Low pressure pushes out of the southern states early this weekend and it will head in a northeast direction towards the Mid-Atlantic coastline. Another player in the weekend event will be high pressure over southeastern Canada which will help to lock in some cold air for the Mid-Atlantic region; especially, interior locations. The precipitation is likely to reach the DC metro region as early as late morning on Saturday and it will continue to push to the north and east likely reaching Philly by early-to-mid afternoon and NYC by late afternoon. In terms of precipitation type, it looks like a battle shaping up for awhile in the I-95 corridor between rain, ice and snow with a mixture the likely result in the big cities that will put a limit on total accumulation amounts. Precipitation is likely to continue on Saturday night as rain or a mix of rain and snow and precipitation may linger well into the day on Sunday in areas north of the PA/MD border. In fact, there is a chance that the “best” snow in the Philly and NYC metro regions falls on Sunday on the backside of the storm.

Preliminary snowfall estimates in DC-to-Philly-to-NYC corridor:

Coating to 1 inch in DC metro, 1-3” in far N/W suburbs

Coating to 2 inches in Philly metro; 2-4 inches in far N/W suburbs

Coating to 2 inches in NYC metro; 2-5 inches in far N/W suburbs

Next week’s storm system will feature a very tight pressure gradient field which can lead to damaging winds in addition to the heavy rainfall and interior, higher elevation accumulating snows…power outages on the table. Map courtesy NOAA, tropicaltidbits.com

Tuesday/Wednesday storm

Next week’s storm looks like it may have a big impact on a large part of the nation from the Midwest/Great Lakes to the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast US. Low pressure will push towards the Great Lakes by Tuesday and - given the overall blocking pattern in the atmosphere - there may be the development of a secondary low pressure system somewhere near the Mid-Atlantic coastline. The favored scenario at this vantage point is for heavy rainfall to develop near and along coastal sections of the eastern US with accumulating snow likely in the interior, higher elevation locations of the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast US. However, it is worth mentioning that given the blocking pattern aloft and the possibility of a secondary low pressure system, there is a chance that there is an initial outburst of snow in some I-95 corridor where rain is likely to end up being the predominate precipitation type.  Also, one other factor to mention with respect to next week’s storm is that there may very well be damaging wind gusts with power outages a real possibility. The pressure difference between the expected strong low pressure system over the Midwest/Great Lakes and high pressure over southeastern Canada will be very large raising the chance for strong - and potentially damaging winds - from later Tuesday into Wednesday; especially, along coastal sections.

Intense cold

One final note of interest, an on-going stratospheric warming event has at least partly contributed to some brutally cold air masses to be unleashed from way up near the North Pole into the middle and high latitudes. A few weeks ago, China recorded its lowest temperatures in many decades and just in the last couple of days, Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Finland have seen some of their coldest temperatures since the late 1990’s. There are signs that some brutal cold makes its way onto the North America side of the North Pole in coming days. In fact, the latest European model run shows some “off-the-scale” intense cold air pushing southward into the western US in about ten days or so…something to closely monitor in coming days.

Buckle up…it looks like quite an active couple of weeks.

Meteorologist Paul Dorian
Arcfield
arcfieldweather.com

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