Your 6-day snowfall outlook and Nor'easter update.
So yesterday and last night was pretty fun to watch with dueling meteorologists from Richmond to DC to State College to Long Island explaining why each model was wrong. What was funny about it is where the meteorologist lived determined which model was right. So the EURO shifted the 30" snow totals toward Richmond Virginia yesterday and actually said 0" for Eastern PA and the Northern half of New Jersey while the US GFS kept heavier amounts further north. Meteorologists in Southern Virginia were emphatic that the EURO was right and the bulls-eye for epic aka historic snow totals would be in Central/South VA. Meanwhile in Central PA the discussion was the EURO was wrong and would correct north and the GFS was right as it showed exponentially more snow in Central PA. Both are seasoned 30 year meteorologists but to some extent have become what we affectionately refer to as a MODEL'ologist reacting to every nuance that will change 4x a day and then change back the next day - an exercise in futility. It's the nature of a meteorologist to want epic storms but all too often the EMOTION gets in the way of sound judgement. That said, the models all shifted 100+ miles further north more similar to what they said yesterday, including the EURO with not much change from our post yesterday morning. Overall the models have done exceedingly well predicting this big event over 10 days ago. But when you want back yard precision you're just expecting too much from computer models as there are so many factors that can make one area get 10" and another get 30" just 50 miles away. Things like dry slots, warm air off the Atlantic Ocean, convective bands, and slight shift of 50 miles in the track - things that simply cannot be predicted even in the middle of the storm.
BOTTOM LINE: If you live in West Virginia, Northern 2/3rds of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and coastal New England you're still in for a widespread 12-18" snow storm from West Virginia to Coastal Mass. Yes models show pockets of epic snow totals of 24"-36" but those will be impossible to pin point exactly even by Saturday. The models did slow down the start time by 10 hours so instead of being Friday afternoon in Eastern PA it's more likely 3am Saturday. This puts the majority of the storm in the daylight timeframe Saturday which can hold snow totals down just a tad as the sun's energy, while weak this time of year, can still allow for some sublimation of snow. Right now the favored areas for these huge amounts would be in the higher terrain of West Virginia and Western Virginia to the West of Washington D.C. extending up into Western MD and South Central Pennsylvania.
Other major concerns are going to be tidal flooding along the coasts from Maryland to Long Island with sustained winds of 30mph gusting as high as 65mph. Timing is horrible as the peak of the Nor'easter is Saturday which corresponds with a full moon, compounding the coastal flooding threat. The flooding threat in NJ as an example is highest at 6:43am Saturday am but the highest risk period for coastal flooding is the 7:09pm high tide and again Sunday 7:26am.
We will keep you posted but try not to monitor this thing with every model run every 6 hours as that will drive you crazy like the past few days where they said 40" in Bethlehem to 27" to 12" to 0" and now back to 18". Reality is typically somewhere in the middle.
Visit our facebook fan page for a video showing the daily snow totals and storm tracks.
- Capt Kirk out.
Tools to monitor the storm:
INTERACTIVE 14 DAY FORECAST MAPS with radar, lightning, rain/snow lines, winds, waves, etc etc. at
http://www.weathertrends360.com/Maps/Interactive
14-Day, Hourly Forecasts for 120 million locations on the globe and NO ADS, these change daily (your on this page)