A Very Strong Storm May be Brewing for Friday!

As I have been saying for a few days now, a major storm may be brewing for Friday. The only good news with this is that it now looks likely that the Wednesday/Thursday storm may stay south of us, as some of the energy consolidates into the potentially very intense storm on Friday along the East Coast of the United States. The reason the models were having a hard time yesterday afternoon as I stated, was that they were in transition to coming up with this scenario that now appears likely. So, for now, take the Wednesday/Thursday storm out of the forecast, as it appears it will stay just south of us, as some of the energy that would have brought it further north consolidates into the potentially very powerful storm on Friday. On Thursday night a storm will likely start to develop along the Northern Gulf of Mexico and strengthen as it moves north, up the East Coast of the United States on Friday. If this storm does occur, as I have been thinking it will for many days now and have been posting about and talking privately with many of you about, the questions for our area will be two-fold. One, where exactly does the center of low-pressure track, and two, how much cold air remains in place in our location? If the center of low-pressure tracks to our south and east, this could cause enough cold air to remain in place to allow for snow. If the storm tracks to our west, or over us, it would cause warm air to move in and the precipitation would fall as rain or a combination of rain and snow. This will be a very interesting weather situation to watch develop. Now, let me give you an idea of what some of the models are showing this morning. The model that has the highest degree of accuracy 6-days out, which is where we are right now, is the European model. The European model currently has a very strong storm moving north up the coast with the center of low pressure remaining to our south and east, causing the precipitation to fall as wet snow throughout Northern New Jersey. The European model would indicate the possibility of more than a foot of snow for all of Northern New Jersey. The British model, which is currently in 2nd place for accuracy 6-days out, is showing a monster storm, which could bring rain or snow depending on surface temperatures. Our wonderful American model also now shows a strong storm that would bring us a snow to start, then changing to rain, but the American model is now in 4th place behind the Canadian model, (and imagine the government is going to cut funding to the National Weather Service by another 30% this year. The National Weather Service radar does not even work currently out of the Philadelphia office, which covers much of Northern New Jersey). The Canadian model had shown a massive storm on its previous run, but now shows almost nothing, probably just a bad run of that model. So, stay tuned. I will post another update this afternoon after I have a chance to analyze the afternoon model runs. Have a great day everyone!