The good news is the strong Arctic High Pressure system is now off the New England coast taking the Arctic air with it. This past weekend in the Northeast was the coldest in over 25 years with quite a few record low temperatures set Valentine's Day morning. Here at wt360 headquarters in Bethlehem, PA we dipped to -1F. For the U.S. overall the Valentine's Day weekend was the 3rd coldest of the past 25+ years and coldest in 9 years.
With the High Pressure off the Northeast coast it will serve as a steering mechanism to take the strong developing storm in Mississippi and move it up the Appalachian Mountains. This will allow for a very strong southerly wind flow at the surface and aloft to take over this evening. This will change the snow in the Middle Atlantic over to all rain this evening with temperatures going up overnight all the way into Eastern New England. Snowfall amounts will generally be light in the 1-4" range from DC to Boston with the changeover to heavy rain this evening. Heaviest snow totals will be in Central Virginia and South Central Maryland where a few spots will pick up 4-6" before the changeover.
Tomorrow will be all rain well into New Englandand 250 miles inland of the coastwith heavier snow actually WEST of the Appalachian Mountains as the storm tracks through West Virginia, Western New York into Canada tomorrow. Urban street flooding will be a concern since the ground is frozen solid.
The good news if you like warmer February weather is the coming weekend (20th-21st) which shows the entire country trending above to much above average temperatures! In fact, the U.S. overall will trend #1 warmest in over 25 years with below average snowfall trending the least in 9 years. Even the Northeast will get in on the warmer weather trending warmest in 14 years and 12 degrees above average! This is a huge change from last year when this weekend continued the frigid trends with record shattering cold a year ago! Only fair this year is near record warm. :)
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- Capt Kirk out.