Tuesday Morning Weather Discussion: Updated Look at Models

Good morning! It sure is a chilly one today with temps in the single digits in many areas. This arctic air really came in with a punch and will stick around all day with temps not getting out of the 20's for the most part. 

As a follow up to my last two posts I have been tracking a potential storm system that can effect the eastern US early next week. I cut a video last night showing how there still is a high degree of uncertainty regarding how all the energy in the upper atmosphere is handled which will influence how and where a storm develops. Lets start off with what we know..

An initial storm system will cut to our west this weekend..

This will bring some rain to the tri state with some initial mixed precipitation up north. This storm is key because it lays the groundwork for a second potential system that will try to develop along the arctic cold front that this first storm brings with it. I show this below..

As you can see in the image above from the GEM model, a low pressure system forms along this front to our south. However, recent trends in the models have been more west with this front. An example of this is below look at where the models had this same front two days ago...

Notice how the front is more to the east so the low pressure can form more east closer to off the coast.  

So what is my point here? My point is that the trends of last 24 hrs are not great for a winter event early next week due to the positioning of the front or baroclinic (warm and cold air) boundary for the low pressure to form. As I mentioned in my video last night, I still am holding on to the idea that this cold air presses a little more than modeled. If that happens then this whole situation can change very quickly and we end up with a much different scenario. That trends needs to start developing over next 48 hrs for my idea to be right. 

I will continue to speculate on this until we get to tomorrow night or Thursday morning where I will make an actual perdition.  Part of the idea of this blog is to discuss how things evolve and what could change. Eventually that leads to a prediction within 4-5 days of a potential event. Sure it would be easy to just read a model run and say that is what is going to happen but we all know how complex the weather is and how the only thing that is guaranteed is that things will change this far out (for better or for worse)

Thanks for reading!