Friday, February 28th, 2014 - Evening Weather Discussion

Click here to read the article about this blog that appeared in yesterday’s edition of the Suburban News newspaper and on NorthJersey.com.  I very much appreciate all of the wonderful comments that were made and I thank you all for reading this blog and making this blog what it is. 

Well, how much snow will we get?  I did state in the newspaper article that I felt our American model was pretty much useless.  Well, that is not exactly what I meant.  It is useful in its own way, but when you compare the model to other better models it is pretty useless.  Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that the American model that showed only two runs ago 15-18 inches in Northern New Jersey, now shows 3-6 inches.  I mean how is anyone supposed to take this model seriously?  I could understand this if the piece of energy that was going to produce the storm just came inland or something like that, but that is not going to happen until tomorrow.  So, my best guess is that the model is just having a bad run, but on the other hand, the European model has also put us on the edge of the 6-12 inch band, but still has us around the 6 inch mark. 

So, what do I think will happen?  I still think we get 6-12 inches but we definitely need to keep an eye on this trend.  I did say previously though that I expected this band to wobble back and forth a bit, and it is definitely doing that and it will likely continue doing that until the piece of energy that is going to produce this storm finally comes on land tomorrow night.  The first run of the models that will have truly good data to use will be the run early on Sunday morning.  So, honestly and unfortunately, we will not really know exactly how much snow we will get until Sunday morning in my mind.  Right now the models are working off data for this storm system that they are obtaining via satellite or if a ship or plane flies through, and not all ships and planes send data into the models.  So, until this system moves inland on Saturday night and is in the models on Sunday morning I won’t thoroughly trust any model and you will likely continue to see these flip flops.  I expect to start seeing some significant changes to the models tomorrow night.  Let’s see what happens.

Anyway, moving forward, there is still a chance of another snowstorm on Thursday night and Friday, again on Sunday, and the following Wednesday. 

Please check back in the morning for the latest in this saga. 

Posted below are the last two runs of the American model, the one from 6 hours ago is on top and the latest one that just came out is on the bottom.  Just remember, I was quoted as saying that the American model was almost unusable.  You now know why I say this.  While the European model has trended south, it did not change this much, not even close really. 

Click here or on the map below to view the snowfall output map from the prior run of the medium range American model only 6 hours ago. 

Click here or on the map below to view the latest snowfall output map from the medium range American model.