December 1, 2000
The general Philadelphia area and it's close suburbs saw no accumulating snow with the system on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. A few claps of thunder were heard here as the storm began to take shape off the DelMarVa peninsula Wednesday evening, but rain mixed with a few wet snowflakes was what verified. The last discussion posted on Wednesday the 29th of November hinted at a 20% chance of a storm affecting our region early in the weekend. Well, the ante has been upped to about 45%, but if a storm does approach the area, it wouldn't be until 'later' in the weekend as it appears now. The reason for the update is that SNUWW will be closed from Saturday evening thru Tuesday evening due to travel plans. There will be no updates for this possible storm beyond tomorrow around 5:30PM (if we need to update). The way it looks now, a shortwave will dive out of Canada and move eastward somewhat similair to the last storm. However, cold air will already be in place this time as opposed to the storm trying to generate or pull down cold air. That's not saying that if this pans out it would be snow. It just means that the chances are higher. For instance, the football game in Carolina vs. the Rams on Sunday should be quite a winter wonderland as a low pressure area develops east of the Carolinas. The cold air is deep in the east. Timing is everything with this system. If the s/w takes too long to close off, the progressive flow will push it out to sea. If the s/w closes off quickly and remains closed off, the ridge off the coast will be more amplified and the system would try to move NNEward and bring precipitation and windy weather our way. We'll know by later tomorrow. Take care.
