Thursday, February 6th, 2014 - Morning Weather Discussion

We will see nice but cold days today and tomorrow (a much needed break).  But, unfortunately it won’t last long as another storm system will approach for this weekend.  There are two possibilities with this storm, and the difference between the possibilities is rather dramatic. 

One possibility is that this storm system is rather weak and just scoots by over the weekend and gives us some light snow from Saturday afternoon through early Monday with total accumulations around 2 inches. 

Another possibility is that this storm system becomes something close to what the models were showing many days ago.  That would be a storm that explosively develops once it reaches a point near the Delmarva Peninsula on Sunday night, moving northeast and bringing us light snow on Saturday afternoon and night, and heavy snow and strong winds developing during the day on Sunday and especially for Sunday night into Monday morning, with very significant accumulations.

I am not yet certain which of these possibilities it will be.  The reason for the uncertainty is that when the disturbance responsible for this potential was over land in Siberia the models were showing explosive development with this storm when it hit the coast on Sunday night.  Then, when this disturbance went out over the open waters of the Pacific Ocean it disappeared from the models.  Now, the question is, when this piece of energy starts coming back in over land later today, will the models pick the storm back up?  I don’t know the answer to that question, but I have seen this happen many times.  However, just because this does happen on occasion does not mean it will happen this time.  We may just end up with a little light snow this weekend.  I urge everyone to check back for updates just in case. 

After this storm passes this weekend we will be faced with another mid-week storm next week and it could be a significant one again.  The timing for this storm would be from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday afternoon.  Right now it appears that this storm would start as snow on Wednesday afternoon, but quite possibly change to rain early on Thursday morning prior to ending around mid-day on Thursday.  I will be keeping a close eye on this storm. 

After that storm passes we will likely see a chance for a little more snow next Friday afternoon and night as a weak storm system approaches, followed by the chance for a little more snow the following weekend.

Please be sure to check back for updates in regards to the storm this weekend.  This one might very well end up just being a nuisance type of storm with a couple of inches of accumulation over a couple of days.  BUT there is a chance it could end up being something much more than that.