Very Cold...Snow Around Friday???

Time to start posting again as we get back from winter break. Two opportunities for accumulating snow in the next week...

First, light to moderate snow has already started to fall and will continue to fall through tomorrow morning as an upper level wave transports moisture into the area. This is really nothing major, and I only expect a widespread 1" snowfall with isolated "jackpot" amounts of up to 2".

The second, slightly more exciting possibility for accumulating snow comes around Friday this week. In this timeframe, an upper level low pressure system will eject out of the western U.S. and move through the Midwest. Eventually, a surface low pressure system will form and give someone a significant snowfall. My current prediction for snowfall from this storm is around 2-3", even though this will be a fairly dry storm. The reasoning is that because it is going to be so cold, snow ratios will be higher than normal. Therefore, what would be only 1" of snow in warmer conditions may be 2", or maybe even 3" in the cold conditions we will have as this storm passes through.

Also, I can see two possibilities for higher snow accumulations with this storm. The first possibility is that the surface low pressure system develops much further west than forecasted. The surface low pressure system is currently expected to more or less ride up the Atlantic Coast, giving the Northeast US another potentially significant snowstorm. However, as I have mentioned before, forecast models tend to put the position of these lows too far to the east at this time in the forecast. It would take a large shift west to put us in a position to receive significant snowfall from the main surface low, but it is not entirely out of the question.

The better possibility is that the upper level low taps into some Gulf of Mexico moisture. As I mentioned previously, this is expected to be a fairly moisture-starved system. However, it is conceivable that the system could tap into more moisture than is currently expected, resulting in slightly higher accumulations.

The bottom line is that the system on Friday is not currently expected to be anything more than nuisiance snow. However, this system bears some resemblance to systems in the past that have given us fairly significant snowfalls due to high snow ratios. Therefore, I will be monitoring this system and will update if it will be more significant than I have currently forecasted.