Good morning weather folks! It’s been a fascinating 10 days weather wise since my last post. Our March 3/4 storm dropped over a foot in parts of MA/VT/NH/ME with 50-66mph gusts along coastal sections of NY/NJ, and with yesterday’s system up to 7.8″ in High Point, NJ, and 8.5″ in Rensselaerville, NY. Out west, the Pineapple Express is slamming California yet again. How’s a season total of 562″ of snow at Northstar California in Lake Tahoe, sound? That’s 46 feet!!
Speaking of storms, this is the 30th anniversary of 1993 Superstorm or Storm of the Century. Remember where you were (drop a comment below if you recall any details)? Tropical to hurricane force winds occurred in every state east of the Mississippi and snow fell from Florida to Maine!
I guess old man winter wanted to drum up another doozy to help commemorate this date in weather history! Following up on my last 2 posts on 2/27 and 3/3 of a possible blockbuster between March 11th and 15th, it looks like a powerful Nor’easter may slam our part of the country later Monday into Wednesday. This storm has most of the ingredients and characteristics to create an absolute mess across the Northeast. Travel, especially on Tuesday will be difficult but depends on where you are. While my 4 T’s (track, timing, type and totals) are still yet to be etched in snow, inland sections will receive significant snow accumulations and coastal sections of the I95 corridor will see a mix of heavy rain, changing over to sleet/snow. As the low moves off shore and rapidly deepens as it travel up the coast, combined with the cement type snowfall, strong to damaging winds will lead to potentially significant and widespread power outages.
Snowfall totals could be measured in feet in spots, with possible bullseyes in mid and upper Hudson Valley, Western and N/C Mass, higher elevation spots in S VT and S NH, subject to change. There will be sharp gradients where for example, 20 miles or so could separate slush to a foot in NJ! The boundary between wet and white will be a moving target. In fact, south of 78, little accumulation is expected at this point. NYC, the Cape and Boston are the wildcards as precip starts as rain then changing over to snow on the backend. E winds will be blowing relatively warm sea surface temps to the coast, but will eventually rotate out of the NW, driving a colder air mass into the storm. You may hear the term, Bombogenesis flood social media (or airwaves, I’m still old school). This meteorological term (also called a “bomb cyclone”) describes a rapid drop in barometric pressure of 24mb over a 24 hour period. The latest model runs do show a drop of over 30mb to a 971mb low off the Cape.
As of this writing, the National Weather Service has begun issuing Winter Storm Watches, Coastal Flood Advisories, and High Wind Watches. See above:
In terms of general timing and type and totals, here’s the initial forecast. For the Tri-State area, precip moves in NJ and up into HV/NYC and LI Monday late morning to early afternoon, ending Tuesday morning to early afternoon. Temps will be in the 40s Monday but drop in the low 30s overnight as winds shift to out of the NW (gusting to 30-40mph, up to 50mph along coastal sections), driving colder air leading to the change over to snow. 1-3″ of heavy downpours are likely. In Sussex, northern Morris and Passaic, 3-12″ of snow possible. 6-12″, higher in isolated spots up in Hudson Valley, esp NW of I87.
For New England, including Boston area, the Seacoast, up to the Whites and Maine, precip holds off until Monday night, possibly starting as rain along the coast before changing over to all snow for most of Tuesday, tapering off by Wednesday morning. If possible, plan to not travel at all Tuesday as conditions will be quite difficult. Peak wind gusts will reach up to 50-60mph (I wouldn’t be surprised to an isolated 70 to 80mph on the Cape and perhaps Shoals) along all coastal sections, and even 30-50mph well inland across MA and up in the Whites. Thunder snow can’t be ruled out too. Plan for outages given both heavy snow and power outages. If possible move cars away from trees and bring in any loose outdoor items. As of this morning, a High Wind Watch is up for East Essex and East Plymouth counties. Winter Storm Watches are also up for all NH counties except Coos, and most of SW Maine. In terms of snow totals, that’s a challenge. While latest 0Z Euro run is printing a general 6-12″ across NH (isolated higher amounts in spots) and surprising higher totals around Beantown, its using 10-1 ratios, but should be more like 7-1 given the high water content. That said, while it should be taken with grain of snow, the latest 0Z run of 12k NAM is off its rocker with significantly higher amounts which I won’t even mention. Regardless, this is cement, ala heart attack snow so please take your time so its not your time, shoveling.
That’s it for now. I’ll be back with an update to narrow down the 4 T’s and see if there are any surprises that pop up. There will be busts as well as over performers on snow totals, mark my word. Either way, this is going to be major Nor’easter with major impacts to travel, damaging winds and plenty of power outages, mainly N+W of NYC to southern New England on North. Is this a milk, bread, beer and battery event? Better to prep for the worst, vs wing it and be without power for a few days. If your under one of those feeder bands on the backend of the storm, snow rates of 1-3″ per hour are possible. May I remind you from my previous post that old man winter isn’t quite ready to hang up his hat yet. I’m keeping my eye on a possible system next weekend, and especially the week of the 20th (Spring Equinox) with potentially 2 big storms. To add to the misery or in my case, magical March look for temps to be well below normal for the rest of the month. Late night so time for nap (of course we lost an hour), but remember weather never sleeps!
