Monday Weather Update: A Ski Country Pattern, Mixed Bag Wednesday

Good morning. One week of February is almost in the books and many are wondering when will it snow again. Well, flakes will certainty fly but the issue I see in this current pattern is that they will struggle to remain frozen for many areas. As I mentioned last week, the issue we are having is when cold air moves into the region, there is nothing to lock it in ahead of an approaching storm. The result is storms moving in warm air changing any snow to rain or mixed precipitation. We just saw that happen yesterday and we are likely to see it happen again on Wednesday.

Temperatures will feel seasonable over the next 2 days as high pressure builds into the region...

On paper this looks great, all we need is some moisture and we get snow right? Well no, moisture means warm air and if the track of a storm system is not perfectly positioned off the coast we see mixing.

Wednesday is a perfect example of this...

On Wednesday morning snow will move into the region as low pressure approaches from our west...

There are indications that a few inches could pile up for many areas initially which could make for a very trick morning commute.

However, as the afternoon wears on, the cold air gets eroded and the snow changes to a mix and plain rain for many as low pressure passes too close to the coast (allows warm southern air to move into region)...

Notice how the ski country stays all snow. This is a great pattern for them at least. The next 2 weeks should be great up there. 


So what about that cold high I showed in the first image. Why isn't that locked in? Well the answer is no 50/50 vortex over eastern Canada...

So whats the bottom line? How much snow can we see for the changeover Wednesday?

At this time I like the GFS model's printout of a few quick inches of snow for the areas below Wednesday morning...

Stay tuned, I will update on this again tomorrow. 


Long Range Note:

In the long range I expect a lot of cold air to stay in play for the month of February. This cold air will go to waste until we see high pressure develop over Greenland (-NAO). There are some hints this can occur for the last two weeks of the Month.  The atmosphere is expected to undergo an major stratospheric warming in the next 2 weeks where the polar vortex will completely split. How this evolves and where the split vortex ends up will tell the tale for the rest of the season. I will also be commenting on this.