January 16, 2005
A few flurries overnight, otherwise brisk and cold with lows around 20. Monday will feature partially clearing skies as the day progresses, continued brisk and cold with the high temperature around freezing. A reinforcing shot of colder air will keep daytime high in the upper 20s on Tuesday under mostly sunny skies. A quick moving cold front will bring snow showers to the region late in the day on Wednesday and into Wednesday night. Highs Wednesday in the low to mid 30s.
Things get interesting as we head into the weekend, and the outcome of what transpires will be a direct function of the quick moving clipper-type system that will move through the Northeast during the middle of the week. When this storm complex finally closes off an upper low near the 50/50 position, blocking develops over Greenland, and mid-level vortices dive into the Tennessee Valley, the pieces will be in place for a significant and large-scale storm for parts of the Eastern United States next weekend. Things are very sketchy in terms of exact details, but nearly all guidance points to a phased system with strong high pressure and blocking at high latitudes preventing this system from moving rapidly. Point is, someone is going to get dumped on with a Miller system of this nature. Just is going to depend on timing of the 50/50 low, when it opens and becomes part of the PV again will be critical for what happens. Time frame for the storm is sometime next weekend but the track still needs to be looked at and monitored. Trends with guidance are to suppress the snowfall to the South of the Mason-Dixon line, except for the UKMET and GGEM which turn the system up the coast and clobber the NE and Mid Atlantic. I believe the former *may* be correct as guidance is hinting at a fairly potent vortmax rolling across Southern Canada that could act as a kicker and keep this system suppressed AND moving quickly. Would think this system resembles the January 1987 system which hit areas like South Jersey and Delaware with almost 2' of snow while we had 4-6" in Philadelphia. There will be a band of very heavy snow setting up from WSW to ENE in orientation and depending on where, it could be quite a thumping.
So, let's see what happens at H5 later Wednesday into Friday with the first quick moving system before getting too excited about a significant storm affecting the area for next weekend. Again, there is a wide range in regards to track at this time, but strong agreement in regards to how this Miller system will evolve. Stay tuned, some areas will meet their seasonal totals with this potential system.
S.B.
