Tuesday, February 4th, 2014 - Evening Weather Discussion

The snow should commence around 11 pm this evening and become heavy at times until around 6 am when it will start to mix with and possibly change to sleet and freezing rain from south to north, with a mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain falling heavy at times through around 11 am, then likely changing back to light snow by mid afternoon, and ending between 5 pm and 7 pm.  In far Northern Sussex County and in the Northern ¾ of Orange County there will be no changeover and all snow will fall.

Total snowfall accumulations should be 4-10 inches from south to north with the lowest accumulations near Rt. 78 and the highest accumulations from Northern Sussex County to the Northern ¾ of Orange County will there will be only snow.  Warren, Sussex, Morris, Passaic, and the northern half of Essex County, and most of Bergen County except possibly the extreme southeastern part should remain below freezing throughout this storm.

The areas between the line I just drew and the all snow line will see not only a significant accumulation of snow, but will also see a significant accumulation of ice, possibly between a quarter and a half of an inch.  This would cause severe problems not only with the roads, but potentially with wide-spread power outages as many of these same areas still have some snow on the trees.  This will also be a heavy, wet snow that will accumulate on the trees, followed by freezing rain that will soak into the heavy wet snow, and tree limbs and possibly some entire trees will likely come down on power lines.  I am still hoping that this will somehow become more of a snow event for these areas, but it is not looking good.

Moving beyond this storm to the storm potential this weekend, I am still not certain, so no declarations yet, however, my feeling is that this storm will likely be quite significant in our area, and possibly even further to the south for our friends down there.

First, a weaker storm will likely brush our area with some snow during the day or evening on Saturday, then I envision an intense storm forming over the Southeastern States on Sunday morning, drawing moisture off the Gulf of Mexico, then intensifying as it moves northeast, bringing snow to Northern Georgia, the Southern Appalachians, Western South Carolina, Western and Central North Carolina, and through Virginia on Sunday morning.

This storm should continue to intensify as it moves to a point near the Virginia Capes on Sunday night, with heavy snow possible down into Central North Carolina.  Snow should start to develop in Northern New Jersey and the New York City area by late Sunday morning, becoming heavy at times on Sunday afternoon and continuing through Sunday night as the storm rapidly intensifies and moves due north to a position about 25 miles off the coast of New Jersey.  I believe the storm will be quite intense at that time with strong winds and heavy snow falling from Virginia through Eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and up into New England.  I also believe this storm will have the potential to reach blizzard classification for the areas I just mentioned, and definitely for New England.  The snow should end on Monday morning in the New Jersey and New York City area.   I feel that the areas I just mentioned will have the potential for easily 6-12 inches, and possibly as much as 1-2 feet depending upon exactly where and how this storm develops.  The heavy snow would continue in New England until Monday afternoon.

Now, that is my gut instinct and I am definitely going out on a limb with this forecast as NO model is currently showing this scenario.  The American model has shown this scenario on prior runs and the European model has also shown similar scenarios in the past.  I feel that the models are not seeing the potential at the moment because the piece of energy responsible for producing this storm is currently out over the Pacific Ocean where there is little data for the models.  I believe the models will continue to have difficulty with this storm until that piece of energy comes on shore on Thursday evening.  So, we may not know for sure until Friday.  There is still a very real chance that this storm will not develop at all, or that it will develop and miss us out to sea, but my gut tells me otherwise.  We shall see.

Please be careful if you must drive tomorrow morning and be prepared for possible power outages in the areas outlined above as potential areas to receive significant ice.

Have a nice evening.

This beautiful picture of the upper reaches off the north branch of the Raritan River in Mendham Township, NJ, is courtesy of Bob Darling, Jr., thanks Bob!