Saturday eve: Is A Major Snowstorm/Blizzard On the way?

Well the answer appears to be yes.  Please excuse the format and grammer of this post as I am skiing and have no computer.  This is all being done on my cell phone, but I am so excited about this potential a post is very necessary.

So what is the potential here?  The potential is for  major storm system to develop behind a shot of arctic air tonight.  This means it will be very cold so this is a all Snow threat for mostly every area from Delaware to Maine.  This is a storm system that has the POTENTIAL to be historic as the region in its bullseye could be taking about feet of snow.  I wish I had the capability to make a video because I am very amped up on the setup leading to this storm.  We are only 36-48 hours away so a storm is def  coming the question just remains who gets the bullseye NYC area or Boston?

So let's  dive right into it.  The image below shows the cold air in place ahead of the storm due to an arctic high in Canada.  This is a KEY ingredient as it supply a boatload of cold air for all regions..

All the blue represents cold air and you can see the high pressure center North of VT.

Our storm developes due to a northern disturbance diving sharply down from Canada.  The ridge of high pressure out west is key as the more amplified it is the more the storm will hug the coast.  Models have trended favorable on this.

I drew out in the image above the key factors here. That ridge causes the blue disturbance to dive deep into the east and develop a surface low off the coast. Ahead of the low we have our old storm from today around Nova Scotia and high pressure developing to the north of it over Greenland.  This is another key ingredient.  The old storm is called a 50/50 low and acts to hold in place the cold high pressure that you saw on the first image. The high pressure over Greenland is a slight negative NAO which usually goes along w a 50/50 low.  Why is this important???  Because it not only holds cold air in place but slows storm down off the coast or blocks it!  This means it stalls out and deepens.  Naturally that gives this the shot to be historic as massive amounts of moisture aided by the warmer than normal Atlantic will be thrown back into the cold air in place.  What you are left w is someone getting an epic snowstorm, some getting a decent storm, and some getting ripped off.

The biggest key as to if it's NYC or Boston to Me is how steep ridge gets. We need a very steep ridge like the European shows to get the bullseye into NYC area into NJ.  The gfs was shallower w ridge thus was more east and North w storm mainly hitting Boston hard and more moderate snow South.

Why am I going I to this detail?  Because you guys need to understand I can't make a final call until tomorrow on who's actually gets clobbered.

Here is gfs model for Monday night into Tuesday.

Can't show precip but check out euro below and the high to the north blocking this storm from leaving

This is so impressive. As we can have an event that lasts from Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon.  That is very rare hence why I am calling this potentially historic.

Here is my first map on this situation. The red zone is potentially 2 feet of snow hence the bullseye.

Bottom line a storm is likely and it can be of long duration and significant. I still need to wait till tomorrow to hone in on this as small changes can cause some areas to bust badly and not get much snow while others get clobbered. For example a small shift North means Boston gets feet of snow on and NJ 6 inches.

I will have a quick update tomorrow morning and add some stuff to my Twitter during the day as data comes in.

 When I'm home finally tomorrow night I will have a final forecast map and video around 1030. It's funny I didn't take my computer  w me on this trip BC i was superstitious that there would be no storm to post on if I did. Yes I am that nuts.

Stay tuned!