Monday, March 24th, 2014 - Evening Weather Discussion

One of the most intense storms in history will develop off the East Coast of the United States tomorrow and Wednesday, surpassed by only Superstorm Sandy.  Luckily for everyone along the East Coast of the United States, the storm center will remain safely out to sea.  We will all however have to deal with strong winds, and possibly a bit of snow as well.

I already put out my quick update earlier announcing the lower totals and I am sure some of you are wondering what happened again.  Well, this storm is so intense that any wiggle or waggle will make a huge difference in what happens.  On this particular model run the model is projecting that the storm will intensify a bit quicker and in doing so will wrap the snow back in toward the center and away from us.  This would give areas to the south of us down in northern Virginia, Maryland, and South Jersey the snow that we were supposed to get once again.  This will also push the storm about 50 miles further off shore of New Jersey and Cape Cod.

It still remains to be seen if this will be the actual outcome, but for now we have to go with that unless something changes.  This would leave us with just some snow showers tomorrow evening and night that could accumulate to a dusting to an inch, with 2-5 inches for Maryland, Northern Virginia, Southern New Jersey, and Eastern Long Island.  It still looks as if Cape Cod will get at least a foot.

The other problem will be the strong winds.  Even though the storm may end up about 50 miles further off the coast of New Jersey, the wind field is massive with this storm so it will not make one bit of difference with the strong winds.  I still expect winds to gust to 40-50 mph on Wednesday, 50-60 mph on Eastern Long Island, and 60-80 mph on Cape Cod.  Around the storm center (about 150 miles off the coast of New Jersey and only 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod) winds are projected to be around or over 100 mph (equivalent to a category 2 hurricane).

Luckily after this storm passes it will warm up for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to near 60, then to the low to mid 60's on Monday and temperatures may approach 70 degrees next Tuesday.

The only precipitation would be a chance of shower on Friday night and again next Wednesday.  The showers could mix with or change to snow next Wednesday night as some cold air will move back in to the area.