Sunday Morning's Weather Discussion - IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE? - CAN IT HAPPEN AGAIN? - MODELS DOING UNREAL THINGS IN THE LONG TERM!

Well, I have to admit, what I am seeing on the models is simply amazing in the long term.  The models at the end of this 10-day period are simply showing things that I have never seen before.  The models are eerily similar to last year at this time.  They are importantly a little different though in that they do not currently show our area in the bull’s eye as they did last year at this time.  They show us on the fringes of a storm that has the potential to be historical wherever it hits, and right now it appears to be New England that will be in the bulls eye for this storm, with us just on the fringes.  This is subject to significant changes as we are still about 10 days away from the storm, and the level of accuracy with the models at this range is extremely low, but just like last year, I have been seeing this potential for several days already on the models.  Again, it seems as if the models know that something significant is going to happen in the Northeastern United States sometime between October 30 and November 1 but they can’t agree on the details as to how all this is going to come together.  Interestingly though, even with us being 10 days away from this storm possibility, the two models that go out that far, the American and the European model are now starting to agree on some of these details.  Basically, a Tropical Storm is going to be moving westward through the Caribbean to a point near Cuba or the Bahamas, then start moving north at the same time that the entire pool of cold air from the North Pole is displaced southward in our direction by an incredibly strong low-pressure center that moves into Northern Canada.  This storm moving into Canada will displace the entire pool of cold air over the Arctic down into the United States and towards us at the same time that the Tropical Storm is heading North out of the Caribbean and toward us.  BOTH the European and American models are now agreeing on this scenario, which is amazing in itself, but I have often seen this happen when a large-scale system is going to affect a certain area.  The models then start to diverge on the details as to how the cold air and the Tropical Storm interact, with the European model keeping the cold air just to our West over the Western half of Pennsylvania and preventing it from coming East before the model cuts off as the high resolution version only goes out to 10 days.  It is entirely possible that this cold air would continue to progress eastward after this, but it is not certain.  What the European model does show is that the main part of the Tropical Storm may escape to the East, but a very significant Nor’easter may then develop along the Middle Atlantic coast and this storm could possibly pull the cold air that is now close by, into it.  The lower resolution version of the European model that goes out to 15 days actually shows the Tropical Storm being pulled back into New England and producing tremendous rains, winds and possibly heavy snow to areas further to the West, but ever so slightly missing us.  The American model is much like the lower resolution version of the European model as it actually brings the cold air into our region on October 30, then pulls the Tropical Storm in off the Atlantic Ocean. It then merges it with a piece of energy along the coast and makes landfall as one of the strongest and deepest low-pressure systems that I have ever seen, similar to the storm that occurred the day after Christmas a couple of years ago.  The American model produces up to 9 inches of rain for New England with this storm, with blizzard conditions further to the West over New York State. In addition, unbelievably, it brings snow even in to our region, and in significant quantities, starting on October 30 and continuing until November 1. This is because it pulls the entire pool of air from the North pole to a position directly over our heads while pulling this incredibly intense low-pressure area all the way back to the Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean and New England.  It is hard to image that anything even remotely similar to this could happen, especially two years in a row, but who knows?  Right now, I will just leave rain in the forecast for day 10, but stay tuned.