Good morning and Happy Holidays to all! Wow, what a great time to be a weather enthusiast! From last weeks Nor’easter to our upcoming major cold front from Christmas Eve into to Christmas Day for the east coast! This is significant event especially for those planning on traveling to see family and friends. While I know many are running around doing last minute shopping (online and in stores), but for those in the Northeast I would strongly make time to plan for this storm before Thursday. I’ll explain in a few moments.
But how about that major Nor’easter last week?? Over 4 states had snow totals over 40 inches with a number of records broken. I will say my general snow range forecasts did fairly well but I was certainly off further north! I mentioned that some of my ranges could be underdone in some locations. I did tweet out all the snow totals across the Northeast which you can see at the end of this post. I could do a writeup with all the details but I’ll keep it to just some pics/videos I took and graphics at the end. I want to focus on the upcoming storm and give you all the details on what to expect and prepare you for.
Ok, let’s talk about our next main event. We have ourselves a powerful and fast moving cold front that rides on the back of Santa’s sleigh Christmas Eve into Christmas Day across the East Coast. This will bring severe weather (accumulating snow limited to NE Ohio and W WV) containing flooding downpours leading to rapid snow melt, damaging winds leading to wide spread power outages, a plunge in temperatures, isolated thunder, squall lines in SE Carolinas and S VA with threat of an isolated tornados, and coastal flooding along with beach erosion. Indeed not your typical run of the mill cold front! We’ll experience two seasons over just a few hours.
Temperatures actually spike into the upper 50s to low 60s on Christmas Eve Day and continue to rise after dark! Yet once the front blasts by, temps plunge 20+ degrees in just a couple of hours overnight and steadily drop though out Christmas Day. This creates the potential for slippery but fortunately temps stay above freezing long enough for roads to dry out.
The tri-state area will see temps in the 30s (wind chills in the teens) on Christmas Day, and in the 40s in S NE. But the mercury continues its descent into the low to mid 20s across the entire East Coast (20s into Georgia and upper 30s to low 40s in the Sunshine State) Christmas night, and stays in the 30s for highs over the weekend.
This all rain event will also bring heavy downpours up to 1-3″ inches in a short period, compounding rapid snow melt. This will lead to street, stream, river and tidal flooding along with coastal splash over during high tide. Most of our snowpack will be wiped out by Christmas unfortunately but there’s plenty of snowstorms on the horizon so don’t fret. Besides the downpours Thursday evening, dense fog will also make travel difficult, especially near snowpack given the southerly warm airmass mixing with the cold surface temps from snow. Wide spread Flood Watches will likely be issued later today.
Aside from the rain and plunging temperatures, the main threat will be strong to damaging wind gusts leading to potential wide spread power outages across the entire Northeast. Inland sections will see 40-60mph gusts, up to isolated 70+ mph along coastal sections. Strong winds at higher levels in the atmosphere don’t always translate at the surface and models sometimes over estimate windspeeds/gusts, but this needs to be taken seriously. Better to be prepared and the power stays on then be caught off guard. Especially if wide spread, utility crews will be swamped so some could be out for days during very cold nights.
In terms of preparations, be sure to charge all electronics and cell phones, bring in loose outdoor items including decorations and garbage cans, make sure you have salt for walkways and driveways given drop in temps, firewood, flashlight batteries, etc. If possible move your cars away from trees (how many times do you see on the news during big wind events crushed cars). The NWS has issued a High Wind Watch for the Jersey shore, the 5 Boroughs, all of Long Island on up the coast from S CT, RI, Eastern Mass including the Cape, the seacoast of NH and the entire coast of ME. Wind Advisories/Watches may be issued further inland later today.
TIMING
For tri-state area (NJ/NYC/LI/Hudson Valley), rainfall begins in the afternoon Christmas Eve from the SW to NE getting steadier and intensifying through out the night, ending by daybreak. Winds pickup through the day and get stronger into the late evening hours, and with the strongest gusts overnight. For those traveling, I would do your very best to make it an very early evening!
Further northeast into Southern New England on up to Maine, rain begins early Christmas morning becoming heavier through out the day yet tapering off before or near sundown. Winds kick into gear before dawn Christmas morning and strengthen into the early afternoon. For those who are traveling on Christmas Day in S NE, the later the better, hopefully you can put off until the late afternoon. While we’re still over 24 hours away, there can be some adjustments on the speed of the storm, changing the timing.
For Baltimore/DC area, rain begins early afternoon on Thursday ending by midnight. Winds pickup through out the morning becoming the strongest (30-40mph) mid to late afternoon. These are all approximate based on the latest runs. I’ll try and do a brief update tonight or early Thursday morning if I see any significant changes on both intensity and timing.
That’s it for now, and thanks for reading. I’ll be back shortly to discuss what’s up next as we have a number of possible storms on the table as the pattern remains active over the next few weeks (a possible major East Coast hit in early to mid January). Be sure to find time to prep in between Holiday plans, and to take this storm seriously. Enjoy your family and friends, stay safe and warm, and remember, Weather Never Sleeps!
