Sunday Afternoon Storm Update: More Wet Than White Tuesday

Good afternoon everyone. Looks like we now have more clarity on our storm system for tomorrow night through Tuesday. Here is the latest:

• Snow spreads into most areas Monday night
• The snow then quickly changes to ice then rain for most
• In the green zone expect some accumulations before changeover to rain
• In the pink zone the surface should stay frozen longer causing more of an icing concern Tuesday morning
• I expect this whole area to eventually change to rain as well Tuesday 
• The blue zone represents the snow zone. 
• We should see 6-12" inches of accumulation with some mixing possible 
• In the wake of this storm we see a very brief warm up followed by more bitter air and storm threats
• I see no signs of a spring pattern until at least 2nd or 3rd week of March
• Whether or not we see a big storm will remain to be seen!

So basically as you can see things have trended warmer over last 24 hours. At this point I do not think they will change back. As impressive as this current arctic air mass is, it will in fact move out of the area completely as this storm approaches. Since the storm will develop inland, that mean it bring in a surge of warm air from the south. This why I expect any snow and ice to change to rain for most areas.

The NAM model sums this up well..

Monday night..snow spreads into area due to enough cold air in place

Early Tuesday morning...warm air quickly flows into the region as arctic air mass departs causing a change to ice..

Late Tuesday morning..the powerful southerly flow causes most areas to change  to plain rain..

Moving  to the upper atmosphere you can see how the southern shortwave of energy we have been looking at over the last few days will in fact be stronger not weaker. This means it allows the southerly flow and more inland storm track. The way this storm would have been colder and more off the coast would have been if this southern feature was weaker. That was not the trend..

At the end of the day the European model wins the coupe this time. It and the UKMET British model have been most consistent all week showing the warmer solution. 

I will have an update tomorrow morning with a play by play. Stay tuned!