Sunday, January 19th, 2014 - Evening Weather Discussion

Well, well, what do we have here?  My first post on this possible storm was back last Monday.  I said it had blizzard potential, and the way it looks this evening, it may be close for eastern Long Island and eastern New England.  A week ago it initially looked as if this storm might be slow moving, as the model at that time was combining the two storms this week, the one coming on Tuesday, with the one coming on Thursday.  It is now obvious that these two storms will remain separate, but they both have the potential to bring us some significant snow.  At the moment I am leaning toward the one on Tuesday bringing us about 1-3 inches starting around 9-10 am on Tuesday morning and ending around midnight on Tuesday night, with 3-6 inches likely for Coastal New Jersey and Eastern Long Island, with near-blizzard conditions possible for Eastern Long Island and Eastern New England.  It is still possible that this storm could trend further north and west, much as the near-blizzard did back the beginning of the month.  That one looked like nearly nothing 2 days prior, just as this one did earlier today.  The models had this one pegged a week ago when the disturbance responsible for creating it was over Siberia where there are few people, but there are weather stations collecting data for the models.  Then the disturbance went out over the North Pacific Ocean where there is only data for the models coming from any random ships or planes that happen to fly through it, or from satellite derived data.  Today the disturbance moved inland in Northern Canada where there are once again weather stations to collect data for the models, hence the big storm coming back.  This also goes against human psychology because you would think that the models would be better 3 days out than 8 days out, but that is often not the case with these types of situations for just this reason.  The big question is how much more this trend will continue?  It may be about over, but it might continue more this evening, only time will tell.  If this trend were to continue it is possible that near-blizzard conditions could get into our area as well on Tuesday, but that would have to remain a long shot at this point.  However, this is a nearly identical situation to what happened when the Polar Vortex made its last visit to our area back the beginning of the month.  I remember the models really struggling with the storm until only 2 days prior, with the European model only figuring it out just before the storm actually hit, even though it pegged it a week out.  Moving forward, I am not sure what to think now about the Thursday afternoon and evening storm.  This storm for Tuesday may take a lot of energy out of the atmosphere for the Thursday storm, leaving us with only some snow showers on Thursday afternoon and night.  That would be my best guess at this point.  Usually you can’t get two big storms back to back like that, but of course it is not impossible, so there is something else to watch for Thursday afternoon and night.  Then we will likely get more snow on Saturday and Sunday, but there are many questions with that one as well.  Then more is possible on Sunday night and Monday morning and at the moment it looks as if that one could be significant.  Then we will likely get another snow event next Tuesday night.  Then a big storm is scheduled for the Saturday before the Super Bowl, but it is still uncertain as to whether it will be 55 degrees with rain or 25 degrees with snow for that one, then it looks as if there could be another snow storm the Wednesday after the Super Bowl.   Wow, my head is spinning.  Please check back and tell all of your friends, relative, neighbors, and unknown people who you have never met before to do the same.   Thanks.  More later when the evening runs of the models come in.  This may get even more interesting later.