Monday, February 18th, 2013, Morning Weather Discussion

We will see a very active next couple of weeks of weather, as winter will apparently go out with a bang.  The main question is whether each of these individual storms will be rain or snow.  As usual, we are going to be on the dividing line between rain and snow here in Northern New Jersey.  The way it looks right now, each one of these storms could go either way, that is, after the rain tomorrow afternoon.  Tomorrow morning temperatures will warm, as warm air surges ahead of a cold front that will pass through our area tomorrow afternoon.  As this warm air pushes in, it will bring a little rain with it, and then temperatures will once again drop after the front passes.  The first storm of concern will be approaching on Friday.  This storm will apparently break into two pieces, the first piece of which will have very little moisture to work with and will just bring a chance of a little light snow on Friday.  Then on Saturday the second piece of the storm will start to develop in the Southeastern United States.  This storm will then move northeast and toward us.  There remain questions as to how far north up the coast this storm will make it.  It might make it far enough North to bring us some significant precipitation on Saturday afternoon and night, but there is also a chance this storm will stay south of us and miss us completely.  The exact track that this storm takes will determine how much and what type of precipitation we receive, if any.  Check back for updates.  The next storm of concern will then approach for next Tuesday.  This storm has the possibility of being quite significant, but again, there are many questions yet to be answered as to how this storm will develop and the track that it will take, which will determine how much and what type of precipitation we receive.  After this storm passes, there are just a million questions as to what happens next.  There appears to be a high likelihood of the northern and southern jet streams phasing somewhere along the East Coast of the United States sometime between Thursday, February 28^th and Sunday March 3^rd.  If, and how, these streams phase will determine whether a big storm develops somewhere along the East Coast toward the end of next week.  If a storm does develop around this time, it may be a very slow moving storm as well.  At this moment in time, it does appear that the storm would have a lot of cold air to work with.  Therefore, there is the potential that somewhere along the East Coast there could be a very significant, long duration snowstorm, and it could even merge with the storm from next Tuesday, hence my forecast of a chance of rain or snow from Next Tuesday through next Sunday.  Of course, this is a very long way out into the future and there is no guarantee this storm will happen at all, and even it does, we don’t know if it will affect our area, or with what type of precipitation if it does, so check back for updates.  This is a very active weather pattern, and there is certainly a lot that can happen over the next two weeks.