Friday, March 21st, 2014 - Morning Weather Discussion

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Ok, so what will be next week?  That is the question.  I will do my best to provide an answer…

First though, we will see a pretty nice day today with a high in the mid to upper 40’s.

Saturday we will have a chance of a shower and it will be a bit warmer with a high in the low to mid 50’s. 

Sunday and Monday should then be nice although temperatures will drop from the mid 40’s on Sunday to the mid 30’s on Monday as the Polar Vortex makes a return to southeastern Canada.

Then on Tuesday one storm will be dropping down into the Central Plains States at the same time that another storm is moving along the Gulf Coast.  These two storms will likely merge near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina on Tuesday evening and then move northeast to a position about 150 miles off the coast of New Jersey by Tuesday night and to about 100 miles southeast of Cape Cod by Wednesday morning, intensifying rapidly. 

If the above track verifies we would be on the edge of a very intense storm that has potential to bring us at least some snow.

If the track moves further out the sea we would see less snow or no snow and if it moves closer to the coast we could see very heavy snowfall amounts. 

To give you an idea of the broad range of possibilities with the models right now, the currently expected track would bring us only 1-3 inches of snow, but the closer to the coast track that is currently depicted by the Canadian model would bring New Jersey 1-3 feet of snow with 1-2 feet across Northern New Jersey and up to 3 feet in coastal locations.  Again, right now I would lean more toward the lower amounts. 

My current probabilities for this storm are as follows:

Probability that the storm completely misses us or does not form - 40%

Probability of receiving at least some snow - 60%

Probability of a very significant snowstorm - 37.5%

To throw out another interesting probability I worked up, if this storm does affect us, I calculate a 50% probability that this is one of the most intense Nor'easters in history.

Please keep in mind that at the moment I am thinking the highest likelihood is that we get side-swiped by the storm with 1-3 inches of snow. 

I will update these probabilities again tonight and I will most likely post a quick update at some point this afternoon. 

Happy Friday!