Apologies for the poor quality of the image above. Just wanted to get this out there quickly as there were a few requests for it. These are what I feel the majority of the storm tracks
will be for the winter 2001-2002, some more prevalent than others. Maroon is an Alberta Clipper track. On some occasions, the clipper will 'clip' right through and out to sea giving minor accumulations to most. On other occasions, we may see these clippers explode upon hitting the coast. The purple pattern is something the Northern tier of the US is accustomed to seeing annually. Occassionally, these clipper systems which are less amplified, will track across Northern New England reinforcing cold air and leaving a swatch of snow in their path. It is not uncommon to see these systems deepen rapidly when entering the Gulf of Maine on their way to Nova Scotia. The blue storm track represents a low emerging from Colorado and riding a fairly zonal flow across the US. We could see this a few times this winter. The green track would certainly yield very cold conditions in the central US, but could pose problems in our neck of the woods. As the low digs into East Texas and makes the turn Northward into the Ohio Valley, it runs into a strong high North of the Great Lakes. This in turn causes the storm to try to redevelop somewhere, often off the Mid Atlantic coast. As a warm front between the second low and the parent low gets hung up on the spine of the mountains, CAD takes place. Chances are higher than normal of seeing a large system emerge from this type of storm track this winter (don't forget about ice). The yellow track is basically a low pressure area that has developed along and old frontal boundary in the Gulf of Mexico. This type of track is notorious for breeding large coastal storms. However, keep in mind as shown above, once these systems hit the Outer Banks, they hit a fork in the road. Either out to sea or up the coast. And finally, the orange storm track is a system that developed in response to a deep close low at 500mb that has settled into the Eastern (even southeastern) part of the country. As energy rotates around the upper low, often times a system tries to develop. This year should feature a few of these systems as last year did. Again, either out to sea or up the coast. The Northeast saw a hefty system with this development and track during the first week of last February.
This is not indicitave of every storm track that the country will see this winter. Western storm tracks were not included in the above graphic. This map will in no way be 100% correct. Storm tracks vary from storm to storm, season to season. These are just my ideas of what the most likely storm tracks will be this winter based on my research. They do not always yield snow for everyone in the Northeast. Best tracks for snow in the Delaware Valley would be maroon, yellow, and orange.
Remember, these storm tracks aren't perfect, so they could sway quite a bit closer to the coast or farther out to sea than depicted. Snow to rain often becomes a problem during these types of storm tracks for our area. Green would have me thinking either rain, ice, or snow depending on factors such as strength of high to the North, orientation of high pressure, and strength of secondary low (among other things). If these tracks are close, we should be looking forward to a near normal season in the snowfall department for Southeastern, PA.
Email: Steve
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