Sunday, December 7, 2014

Sunday, December 7, 2014 - Morning Weather Discussion

A Dangerous Nor'easter is going to affect the Northeastern United States Tuesday through Thursday, possibly lingering into the weekend with EXTREMELY HEAVY RAIN, SNOW, AND WIND…

First though, we will have a nice day today with highs in the mid to upper 30’s.

Tomorrow clouds will increase and there will be a slight chance of a bit of light snow on Monday afternoon or evening.  The highs on Monday should be in the upper 20’s to low 30’s.

Tuesday morning a Nor’easter will start to develop near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and will start to head northward up the coast, intensifying as it does so, reaching a point about 50 miles off the coast of New Jersey and south of Long Island by late Tuesday night.  This will cause snow to develop between 2 and 4 am on Tuesday morning  then it will start to change to rain or sleet in Northeastern New Jersey around 8-9 am, then in Northwestern New Jersey between 10 am and noon, then there will be a VERY HEAVY mixture of rain, sleet, freezing rain, and snow in the afternoon in Northwestern New Jersey, starting to change back to all snow in the evening in Northwestern New Jersey around 6 pm, then back to a mixture again late at night.  Total POSSIBLE snowfall accumulations in the morning before the changeover in Northeastern New Jersey would be a dusting to an inch, and in Northwestern New Jersey, total POSSIBLE accumulations before the changeover in the late morning would be 1-5 inches, with rapidly increasing amounts in Northern Warren, Sussex, Northwestern Morris, and Northern Passaic Counties in New Jersey, Monroe and Pike Counties in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and Orange County in New York. There could very well be additional heavy accumulations of snow and ice in these same areas in the afternoon, and there will be in the evening after the change back to snow, WINDS WILL GUST 30-40 MPH in Northwest New Jersey and 40-50 MPH in Northeastern New Jersey in the afternoon and at night, low in the low to mid 30’s, high in the low to mid 30’s in Northwestern New Jersey and the mid to upper 30’s in Northeastern New Jersey.

The storm may then sit there and spin through the day on Saturday, gradually dying as it does so, but continuing to bring us the chance of significant precipitation on Wednesday and Thursday. 

On Wednesday a mixture of rain and snow may continue through the day, additional significant accumulations of ice and snow are POSSIBLE in Northwestern New Jersey, total possible accumulations in Northwestern New Jersey by Wednesday morning of 2-13 inches with rapidly increasing amounts in Northern Warren, Sussex, Northern Morris, Northern Passaic, and extreme Western Bergen Counties, total possible accumulations in the Poconos and Orange County New York of 6-16 inches by Wednesday morning, temperatures in the low to mid 30’s in Northwestern New Jersey and the mid to upper 30’s in Northeastern New Jersey.

Thursday there may continue to be a mixture of rain and snow continuing through the day, additional significant snowfall accumulations POSSIBLE in Northwestern New Jersey, the Poconos of Pennsylvania, and Orange County, NY, temperatures in the low to mid 30’s in Northwestern New Jersey and the mid to upper 30’s in Northeastern New Jersey.

Friday there will be a chance of light rain and snow and rain and snow showers, some additional accumulations POSSIBLE in Northwestern New Jersey, temperatures in the low to mid 30’s in Northwestern New Jersey and the mid to upper 30’s in Northeastern New Jersey.

The storm should finally come to an end by Saturday with just a chance of a rain or snow shower and highs around 40. 

By the time the storm is finally over, total snow and ice accumulations could be in the 12-18 inch range in Sussex, Northern Passaic, extreme Northern Morris County, and all of Orange County, NY.  Areas of the Pocono Mountains in Northeastern Pennsylvania are still likely to receive up to or over 2 FEET of snow with a widespread area of 1-3 foot + snowfall amounts from North Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania, up through extreme northwestern New Jersey, most of New York State (excluding extreme southeastern sections), Northwestern Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire (excluding the immediate Southeast Coast), and Maine. 

Areas to the south and east of Routes 78 and 287 in New Jersey would have a dusting to 2 inches down to the Hudson River and Central New Jersey although those areas will have to worry about flash flooding as we will receive around 3 inches of rainfall in a short period of time and almost 4 inches total by the time the storm has finished on Saturday morning. 

There are many concerns here:

          1.       It will be a HEAVY WET SNOW and areas that receive large quantities of snow will have serious difficulties not only with travel, but there will likely be widespread power outages from downed trees

          2.       Winds will gust up to 30-40 MPH in Northwestern New Jersey where there could be some heavy wet snow and 40-50 mph where there could be 4 inches of rain.  This would lead to downed trees and power outages

          3.       Heavy rain of up to 4 inches, in areas that receive the rain, with 3 inches in a short time period will lead to flash flooding

          4.       The heavy rain and wet snow, combined with high winds will lead to many downed trees and branches, likely leading to wide-spread power outages

          5.       There will be a widespread area of 1-3 + FEET of snow.  Yes, someone could break 40 inches somewhere.  This will lead to people being stranded on the roadways in some of these locations and will make it nearly impossible for the electric crews to get out to the areas that lose power, so long-duration power outages are likely in some areas, with the potential for hundreds of thousands of people to lose power in the Northeastern United States

Ok, so now what could go wrong with this forecast?  Well, as is usually the case with these big storms, a lot can go wrong.  Chaos theory plays a huge part in weather forecasting.   

My thoughts are that the models may trend colder with this storm in Northern New Jersey as the data starts to see the cold air working its way in as the storm intensifies.  However, it is possible that the storm could actually start to track closer to the coast or come inland.  If this were to occur it would definitely give us more rain than snow and change our local concerns to flash flooding concerns and power outage concerns from the gusty winds blowing down some trees and limbs.  It is still possible that we could get mostly rain with this storm, even in Northwest New Jersey.  I am however more inclined to think it will trend colder.  Only time will tell.

Moving forward, we will have nice days next Sunday and Monday, followed by increasing cloudiness next Tuesday.

The next storm to be concerned about will be the potential of another Nor’easter along the Middle Atlantic Coast next Tuesday night through Thursday. 

Please tell your family, friends, neighbors, relatives and anyone else you run into about this blog.  Thank you. 

If you want to escape the cold and snow, my dad owns a real estate company in Florida. Click here to view his company website.  

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