Winterlike weather is arriving in the Northeast and Upper Midwest

AccuWeather

High-elevation snow and cold rain is coming in three different bursts over the coming days.

Transcript

00:00With the forecast feed tonight, we're going to sniff out some snowflakes and some colder air.

00:07Not everybody's going to see this in the central or northeastern U.S., but we are going to be

00:12dealing with some widespread areas of some cold air, near record cold for some, and also some

00:19snow showers in some areas. Let's take a look at what's going on in the short term. Just a quick

00:22glance at the current storm system kicking through. Wind is the main driver with the problems that

00:28we're facing tonight. There will be a little bit of some light snow that breaks out here for some

00:32areas. We're seeing a little snow mixed in in the highest of elevations now, but as snow levels drop

00:38and temperatures drop a little bit, we're going to get colder. We'll see a changeover to some snow in

00:43more and more of the higher elevations. Before we look ahead, let's take a look at some computer

00:47models here. You can see the GFS. There's our disturbance aloft. We're looking at what's going

00:53on about 20,000 feet up into the sky, the 500 millibar map, but this is the main driver,

00:59the mid to upper levels of the atmosphere, and you'll notice this trough. It's a pretty potent

01:04one, but it's not very high amplitude. It's a low amplitude, but I'm saying that there's a waviness

01:10in the jet stream, but it's not digging all the way down into Georgia. It's mainly even with maybe

01:15Delaware or Virginia. With that, it's a good push of colder air, but it's only impacting a certain

01:24portion of the northeast. If we follow the wind streamlines, for example, you can see it's coming

01:28from the northwest, so it's certainly colder wind, but if you're in Raleigh, North Carolina,

01:33what's moving into your area? Well, the trough is so shallow that the air you're getting, at least

01:39upstairs, has a source region of Colorado or Kansas. So again, it's kind of a low amplitude

01:45situation, and because of that, there's a little bit of rain and some snow. I don't want you to be

01:50deceived by this particular map here, just so you can see how this is displaying things. There's a

01:55six-hour window in which precipitation is categorized, and it accumulates, and then the end of time of

02:02that, the final hour of those six, the temperature threshold is kind of applied as if it's all snow.

02:08It's not all going to be snow. Most of that's rain. A better, probably a better approximation of what

02:13actually is happening here is with the way the European model is parameterized here. You can see

02:18we're dealing with, again, a little snow up in the high ground, but rain for the lower elevations,

02:23and again, that's why we're keeping our expectations very low. There will be one to three inches of snow

02:28that fall, though, up into the higher elevations of the northeast here. In fact, you can see the GFS

02:34model, it produces 5.2 inches of snow at the top of Mount Washington, 6,288 feet, way, way up there,

02:41and you can see the NAM, another model, just hinting at some light snow up in the high ground,

02:46and you can see the European model with two, three inches of snow up in the high ground of

02:50northern New Hampshire, but again, Cathadon up there in central Maine might see three or four inches of

02:56snow, but the lower elevations, Bangor, this hints at an inch plus there in Bangor, Maine, perhaps,

03:01into Thursday. I think the best forecast for Bangor, Maine, coating to less than an inch,

03:06so that's the short term. Let's take you a little farther down the line. We're going to be dealing

03:10with a big change. Another front cuts through on Friday to Saturday. This one, kind of a modest one.

03:16It's a little bit more of a pesky wind shift, but we're not going to see a whole lot of big change

03:23that follows that one, and really, when it comes to the amount of precipitation with it,

03:26there's not much rain or snow left over behind the front, so most of the precipitation may precede the

03:33true frontal passage with this one, and it's mainly a quick shot of rain. We're not even going to see

03:38much snow in the high ground farther north with Friday night's front. This one's kind of a fickle,

03:43shorter one. I mean, maybe not fickle, but it's not going to be as impactful as tonight's will be.

03:49Then, we have some cool air in place, but look at what comes down the pike. We're going to take you

03:54back to the upper-level map, and look at this big, big, big dip in the jet stream here. A very high

04:00amplitude trough that digs all the way down to the Gulf Coast. This is a game-changer here. This is

04:07Monday, when we're going to have a strong upper-level low parked over parts of eastern Canada,

04:12and we're going to have some really strong winds blowing across the Midwest that will have origins

04:20all the way up into central Canada, and really, if you follow the streamlines far enough up,

04:24this is air that's coming from the Arctic, and that is a very deep trough. It's not just the GFS

04:28hinting at that. In fact, the European screams a similar message, deep, deep trough all the way

04:33down to the Gulf, and that's why we have a forecast map that looks a lot like this here for early next

04:40week. December-like, December-like weather. There will be snow potential in that second and final

04:46weekend front. Early next week here, there's going to be a stripe Saturday, Sunday, and into Monday,

04:52where we go from the northern plains Saturday to Monday in the northeast. Rain changing to snow,

04:58or in some spots, even just straight up some snow, and then specifically Sunday-Sunday night portion

05:03of that, that's when the interior northeast gets into it. And then we set the table for some lake-effect

05:08snow. I spent about three and a half years in Erie, PA, and these early season events, the lake is so warm

05:14that we're probably not going to see much snow accumulate on the immediate lakefront. But if

05:19you head inland, head a little farther south, that's where you got a good shot at seeing some

05:23accumulations. And in Erie, PA, for example, you gain 100 feet in elevation every mile you travel

05:28inland. So you go from 1st Street, or from the Bayfront, to maybe the 32nd Street in Erie, you gain

05:37about 100, 150 feet. You get all the way down to Summit Township in northwest Pennsylvania, near I-90

05:42in northwest Pennsylvania. And there, you are several hundred feet above the lake level, maybe

05:48five, six hundred feet above the lake level. So a quick glance at how this may play out. There is

05:53that stripe, a little stripe of snow in Iowa into Michigan. And within the anatomy of this storm

05:59system, this is a good spot to be here, southern Michigan. If you're looking for accumulating snow,

06:03and you're not in the mountains, you got a shot there in southern Michigan on Monday, maybe an inch

06:08or two or three. Here's the European. Look at this. The European lights this area up with a little bit

06:13of snow out there. Maybe some isolated spots could see three or more inches of snow in southern Michigan.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended