Thursday, December 12th, 2013 - Evening Weather Discussion

Temperatures will be quite cold this evening and tomorrow morning but for some reason the European model has been busting terribly with the cold air recently and I am guessing that it is over-estimating due to the snow on the ground.  I have never seen this before with the model but at the moment I don’t trust its low temperature forecasts.  It is doing fairly well with the high temperatures, but not with the low temperatures.  Anyway, a storm will be developing along the Gulf Coast tonight and will move northeast and in our direction on Saturday.  This will cause flurries or light snow to start falling on Saturday morning, possibly as early as 5 am, although there should not be any significant snow until Saturday afternoon.  On Saturday afternoon the snow will become heavier, and will become quite heavy at night.  Between 7:00 pm and 10:00 pm the heaviest snow will fall.  You won’t want to be on the roads at that time, so plan to be off the roads by the evening unless there is an absolute emergency as the snow may come down quite hard between the hours of 7:00 pm and 10:00 pm.  The snow may then start to mix with sleet or freezing rain in some locations, or possibly even change over to sleet or freezing rain after 10:00 pm.  The snow should then come to an end just before sunrise on Sunday with total snow and ice accumulations of 6-8 inches in most locations.  The accumulations could however be lower if there is more of a mix with sleet or freezing rain, or higher if there is less mix or if this storm intensifies more.  I definitely think there is a possibility of this storm strengthening even more and ending up more on the order of the prior runs that gave many of us a foot of snow a few days ago.  I have seen this happen many times in the past.  One more thing, I am extremely surprised that the National Weather Service did not issue Winter Storm Watches for Saturday.  They are supposed to issue them any time there is a chance of 6 inches of snow or significant ice.  We clearly have that here, so I am not sure what their issue is at the moment, but I guess they will do it in the morning.  I truly have no idea what they are waiting for, but whatever.  After the storm passes we will have to keep an eye out for extremely cold temperatures again on Tuesday morning and a chance of more snow on Tuesday as a storm approaches from the west.  Right now the European model is showing this storm bringing us an inch of snow on Tuesday as a Nor’easter starts developing off the coast.  We have to keep a close eye on this storm as well, as it could strengthen quickly and increase snowfall totals.  Then things will warm up dramatically on Friday as warm air surges north into our area, bringing temperatures into the 50’s and near 60 by early next Saturday morning.   It will also rain next Friday night and Saturday and then the cold front will come through, bringing much colder air by Saturday night.  There is also a chance that this front could come through a bit quicker and change the rain to snow next Saturday.  Then there will be a chance of another snowstorm around Monday, December 23^rd.  Then it will get quite cold for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, followed by the chance of another snowstorm on Friday, December 27^th.  We are in a very active weather pattern where storms can pop up on short notice and be quite significant.  I am still wondering if this storm will intensify even more in future model runs.  I suspect it might.  Let’s see what happens.  Check back for my early morning quick update by 4:30 am or my full 2 week forecast by 6:30 am.  Have a great evening and please tell all of your family members, friends, relatives, co-workers, and neighbors about this blog.  Thank you.  Oh, yeah and I am laughing about a certain New York television weather forecaster who last night said repeatedly that the storm would probably largely miss us to the south.  I honestly had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.  I sometimes wonder if they have any idea what they are actually doing.  Anyway, he changed his forecast to 4-8 inches this evening, which is pretty much the idea I have been presenting here since yesterday morning I believe.