Wednesday, January 15th, 2014 - Evening Weather Discussion

First of all, the freezing fog this morning surprised me as much as it did you.  I did not see that coming at all.  Honestly though, I am not here trying to forecast fog anyway, I am trying to forecast the storms.  However, that was indeed the worst freezing fog situation I have ever seen.  This evening some showers popped up ahead of an approaching cold front.  Tomorrow morning a storm will develop off the coast and it will likely throw a bit of snow back into our area, possibly accumulating a dusting to an inch in some places.  The light snow should start around 5-6 am and end by around 9-10 am.  We will then have a chance of a snow flurry or shower on Friday, then on Saturday morning we will likely get another dusting to an inch of snow starting between around 4-5 am and ending between around 11 am and 12 noon.  We will then have a chance of a flurry or snow shower on both Sunday and Monday, then two weak storm systems and the Polar Vortex may come together to create an intense Nor'easter on Tuesday night.  There are however still many questions as to what track this storm will ultimately take.  Most of the computer guidance is currently keeping this storm well out to sea, while the operational run of the European model has produced nearly identical solutions on the last two runs of the model that would give us a significant snowstorm that would approach blizzard classification in our area, and attain blizzard classification over New England.  I am not yet ready to buy into the European model solution as its own ensemble mean is not yet in agreement with the operational run of the model, looking more like the other models and keeping the storm out to sea.  The European model does sometimes blow storms up too much in this time range, so that certainly may be the case here.  On the other hand, it does have the highest degree of accuracy of any model, so we need to keep a close eye on this potential.  After this storm passes it looks as if the Polar Vortex will re-visit our area for the end of next week with lows either below zero or in the single digits and highs in the single digits to teens. There will also be chances for snow basically every other day.  There is no end in sight to this pattern through at least the end of the month.