Christmas Eve 2015: Don't Let Today Fool You

Merry Christmas everyone! I will keep things short and sweet today. I continue to love what I am seeing in terms of winter arriving with a bang as we head into January. Considering it is going to be in the 70's today and pretty mild through the rest of the week I suggest you enjoy it while you can! Old Man Winter is due in middle of next week!

Yes folks that is a snow map and it is valid for Wednesday of next week! Now before everyone gets excited I am NOT convinced of snow in NJ, PA or even CT at this time. However, I think we are staring at a New England ski country special right in the face! Other areas can see ICE with this possibly bleeding into NNJ, we will have to study the model trends next 48 hrs. This is not a fantasy as the pattern supports this. Let me explain..

Looking above I provided a diagram to explain the set up ahead of this storm system next week. On the top left you see the surface map. Notice the low pressure center is cutting to our west. However, it initially is going to be cold enough to snow up in New England and yes possibly in NNJ as indicated by the top right image blue colors. 

This cold air is the result of a very storm area of high pressure over Quebec. You might not be able to tell but on the bottom right that is a massive 1041MB HP system funneling in legitimate cold air. This high pressure at the surface forms due to something called confluence or air coming together at the upper levels of the atmosphere. I indicated that on the bottom left image. 

The HP system should start to slide east however allowing warm air to filter into this storm for all areas south of the I-90 (Mass Pike) corridor which would mean a quick shot of snow for areas in northern CT into Mass changing to ice or rain. 

When it is all said and done ski country could be looking at 6-10 inches maybe a little more with this system on Wednesday!

So why am I not convinced this is going to be a bigger snowfall further south? In simple terms the set up is not perfect. Yes we have an impressive HP system but it should be allowed to slide to the east due to no true vortex over eastern Canada locking it in. The slower this system is the more of the chance it has to trend warmer. We need to wait a few days to watch this evolution.  For those of you who want a glimmer of hope my friend the Canadian model insists that this HP does not slide east as fast. The result is this..

Again not my base case at this time. But I am showing this as what one of the outlier scenarios could be.  Phili or NYC it would shock me if you saw an accumulating snowfall next week. At this time I am going with the New England scenario due to the upper air set up. NNJ we have the shot at some initial winter precip but a turn to rain. 

Oh and by the way for anyone who watched my video the other night, the long term models still looking fantastic for our pattern change...

If any one missed it, you can watch it in my previous post. Let the fun begin. 

Merry Christmas!