Hello weather geeks! Just a brief update on my thoughts about what’s lingering on the horizon for the Northeast. Even for the average individual who doesn’t care about the weather until they stepped outside this past weekend, the first few thoughts on the spring-like temps were probably, “Wow, I could get used to this!…WTH, its January…Winter is over….”. Well, as a firm believer of measuring up total snowfall and average temps from beginning to the end of winter, weather is hardly linear. It ebbs and flows, and usually contains outliers and extremes. That all said, I hope you enjoyed the upper 60s to low 70s, and the general benign winter so far (see the below snow chart from the NWS with just a few NE locations above avg). Those totals will be adding up quickly though. Per my Dec 10th post hint, buckle up folks. The rubber band is about to snap and pattern about to flip. An active stormy and very cold pattern, right into March, is shaping up behind the scenes. Old man winter is awakening and he’s not happy. Our first potential storm of 2020, arrives this weekend, with a possible larger snowstorm(s) towards to end of next week and last days of January.
For this weekend’s potential storm, the players aren’t on the field yet but do move onto the grid iron later today with a strong wave from Alaska with plenty of cold air. As the system intensifies and drives across the 50 yard line (middle of the country for the non football fans), it clashes with a sub-tropical jet fueling added moisture. This creates plenty of travel headaches with rain sleet and snow along I70 from MO IA and IL on north and into the Ohio Valley Thurs into Friday. Ahead of this system for us Saturday, which I’ll touch on in a moment, on Thursday the Ski lovers to the north (ADK, the Greens and Whites) will receive an appetizer of plowable snow from Buffalo to Burlington across to Bangor.
Here’s my initial thoughts for this quick moving storm for the tri-state area. Precip arrives Saturday as snow on the front end. For the moment, the typical sharp cutoff looks like any accumulating snow would be limited to West of 202/287 from Stockton (rt202) to Suffern, NY up to Springfield, MA. East of that line would see little if any accum, with mainly sleet to all rain on back end for most of us. We dry out before daybreak Sunday. While not a shelf clearing event, the burbs of NWNJ and Hudson River Valley could see a modest plowable snowfall. Too early to speculate on totals at the moment, but I’ll be following up later in the week.
Please try to “enjoy” today as the Mercury climbs into the upper 40s to low 50s (normal high/low: 38°F/27°F, the record high/low on this date: 67°F 1932, 0°F 1957). We probably won’t see 50°F for awhile. In fact, look for temps to trend downward Thursday afternoon (very windy as cold front arrives, poss snow squalls in NWBurbs) into Friday (low30s for highs) ahead of the storm. We remain in the low to mid30s this weekend but the coldest airmass of the year descends over the tri-state next week and later this month (possible 30s and 40s for lows all the way down to the Sunshine State too!). I’m tracking 2 potential larger storms between the 24th-26th and last few days of January. Btw, for the Sunday’s AFC Championship game between the Titans at Chiefs, while dry, it’ll be a bit nippy as temps will be in the 20s in Kansas City at kickoff, dropping into the teens in the 2nd half with windchills in the single digits! Tranquil conditions in San Francisco between the Niners and Packers with temps in upper 40s (too bad not in Green Bay with sub zero windchills expected at night).
That’s it for now. I’ll be back later this week with details. Also, I hope to have my 3rd annual video finished shortly containing my top pics and videos of 2019 all edited by my daughter. For those who haven’t seen my past 2, I’ll have them linked above on my site shortly. Speaking of this sharp pattern change to winter, See you on the flippity flip! And remember, weather never sleeps!
