Saturday Morning's Weather Discussion

Well this storm turned out to be a historic blizzard on Long Island, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, with up to 3 feet of snow!  Remember, you heard it here first while the National Weather Service and many local forecasters were talking about rain or nothing until the day before the storm.  As far as Northern New Jersey and New York City itself go, we were just on the very edge of this storm and were merely sideswiped by this monster storm.  Remember I called it a potential monster a few days ago.  The models had indicated that we might very well be sideswiped but then some of the models, the European model included, portrayed a bit more of an effect in our area, but as is often the case with these very strong storms, the back edge can have a very dramatic cut-off in snowfall totals.  This was evidenced by snowfall totals ranging from only 6 inches along the Delaware River in Northern New Jersey but as much as 15 inches being reported in Rivervale in Bergen County along the Hudson River.  Going with the European model, my final forecast was 10-18 inches in those locations, so being on the back edge had a rather dramatic effect on the snowfall totals, keeping totals from reaching what I had forecast.  On the other hand, the areas in the maximum of this storm, just to our east over Long Island and Connecticut were record-breaking in some cases, reaching over 30 inches on sections of Long Island and close to 3 feet in sections of Connecticut.  What was the most disappointing thing about trying to forecast this storm was the performance of our short-range American model.  First, it had no idea that a storm was even going to happen, then when it finally figured it out, it forecast us to be in the bull’s eye only 12 hours before the storm commenced.  That should not happen with a supposedly high-resolution model.  That is rather sad in my opinion.  I wish our country would focus more on things such as this, as weather forecasters were trying to prepare people.  Having one of our supposed best models in the short-range produce a terrible output like this, only 12 hours before the storm commenced, was horrible.  As far as the medium-range American model did, it also did quite poorly until only a few days out when it finally figured out this storm was going to happen, and then it did ok.  The European model remains the king of models, having given every indication that this storm would happen from basically 10 days out, only losing it for a couple of days before bringing it back on every single run of the model since last weekend.  At the very end, it tried to forecast the back edge of the storm, as it portrayed a sharp cut-off to the west, but the cut-off on the back edge was even a bit sharper then what it showed.  Anyway, overall the European model did a great job with this storm.  No one else I know forecast a historic blizzard with this storm before me, and I guess that is why CNBC wanted to have me on national television yesterday afternoon.   I am truly flattered.  Honestly, sometimes I do not even know how I do this. Too bad I could not get there and I hope that next time it will work out.  It may not have been a historic blizzard in our particular back yards here in Northern New Jersey, but it did shut down the trains, the airports, and strand vehicles on the highways on Long Island, and shut down power to 500,000 people between Long Island and New England bringing up to 3 feet of snow in those areas.  I cannot even tell you how many meteorologists and so-called weather experts that I talked to several days before this storm were telling me that the storm would not happen and I was telling them that I believed it would.  Many people ask me how I do it, and it is simply a function of analyzing the same data they are and coming to my own conclusions.  I will not get them all right, as Mother Nature will have her way sometimes or I may make a miscalculation in my predictions, but I know that you all come here to hear about the possibilities, and I appreciate that.  Speaking of that, moving forward it will get quite cold tomorrow morning with lows dropping down into the middle to upper single digits, and then a weak storm will approach for Monday morning.  If the rain with this storm starts around 4am as it looks like it might right now, that would mean freezing rain in many sections of Northern New Jersey until around 7am or 8am when the temperatures finally get above freezing.  Then we have to turn our eyes to a storm that will be approaching our area on Wednesday.  It continues to look as if this storm will remain just to the south of our area, but there is still a slight chance the storm could come just a bit further north and bring us some snow on Wednesday afternoon and night.  After this storm moves by early on Thursday morning, we then need to keep a very close eye on the potential for a very large and intense Nor’easter to develop in our area next weekend.  This storm is still a long way out in time and remains only an interesting possibility at this time, but I do have some concerns about it.  There seem to be some clear indications that storms in the northern and southern branches of the jet stream may once again phase along or near the Jersey Coast next weekend.  I want to reiterate though that this is still a long way out in time, so this may or may not actually happen, and even if it does happen, it does not guarantee a snowstorm either.  The type and quantity of any precipitation would be dependent upon how exactly this potential storm develops or if it develops at all.  For now though, if you were making plans for next weekend, I would check back here for updates.   Have a great day everyone and thanks again for making this blog take off as a rocket ship headed for the stars.  I really appreciate it.