Monday Morning: Tonight's Forecast

A winter storm will effect most of the region late tonight into tomorrow morning. A low pressure area will develop tonight just south of the Tennessee valley and move northeast right over Cape Hatteras and out to sea. Snow breaks out in southern zones just before midnight and after midnight in northern zones.Snow will pick up in intensity through the early morning hours accumulating several inches before ending later Tuesday morning. For southern zone expect up to 8 inches of fluffy snow and lesser amounts in northern zones.. Due to the brutally cold air mass over the region now, snow ratios will be 20 inches of snow per 1 inch of liquid in many areas. This means only 0.4 inches of liquid can produce 8 inches. This is factored into my snow map below. As a side note, for the 3-6 inch snow band expect the lower end of the range to the northwest and higher end to the southeast.

Following this storm, more brutal cold to follow. Why is it so cold? Well the simple answer is the massive ridge of high pressure out over Alaska..

The image above sums this up and in the 10 day period there is no sign that this pattern will relax. 

As an example take a look at the temperature projections for NYC over next ten days. The red line is freezing. 

As for big storm threats, there is nothing I can talk about at this time. Given the fact we have a cold pattern that will likely extend into early March, I can not rule out one significant storm (10"+) before this winter is all said and done. In the meantime, there will be more light to moderate snow events. 

Yes it has been very cold this winter and with the exception of Boston area marginally average for snowfall. The NAO has played a culprit in this as it has not really been negative at all this winter. There are no signs of it going negative anytime soon which makes me realize things do have to fall into place perfectly for a classic east coast snowstorm.

As for my winter forecast the temperature part of the equation is doing ok at this time..

The snowfall has a lot of holes to fill in except for in New England..

So lets see how the final quarter of winter plays out. I will update more on tonight's storm later today.