Evening Update: Well That Didn't Go As Expected

What a day it was. For November 15th, I never would of expected what just unfolded. Usually with these early season storms the warm air does win but today felt like mid-January! The cold air in the mid levels of the atmosphere held on much longer than modeled and resulted in a moderate thump of snow for the region at the worst possible time of the day. The roads are a compete disaster. The quick transition to sleet I expected never occurred until hours later (happening now). As the clock approaches 7pm, snow is winding down for most of CNJ and transitioning to sleet and freezing rain. This process will now advance more north as we get through the night. For our friends in New England, they still have hours of snow ahead.

Animation below shows how the trend of models fliped to colder in the mid atmosphere notice last 2 frames the batch of blue taking over. Big correction with massive forecast implications.

So it appears most of the region from the NW suburbs of Phili to CNJ and NNJ got anywhere from 3 to 8 inches of snow so far! I have around 6.5-7" in my backyard in Morristown NJ (northern NJ).

This was much more than what my forecast was. It kills me to kick off the season with a big L but if my Winter Forecast pans out, there will be many more events to rack up the points on. 

So here is what the current radar looks like over the area...

You can now see the rain to the south and the mixing making its way north.

Our friends in New England have a while to go and will see several inches pile up overnight.

As I mentioned I am amazed with this cold air mass, check out the current temps...

These will actually warm later tonight as that warm air from the south finally wins out.

However, as the upper level low passes tomorrow morning we can see one more burst of winter precipitation around daybreak in areas to the north and west...

In the wake of this storm system things calm down but stay generally cold. There is a chance this snow sticks around for Thanksgiving this year for some areas.

As we approach December the weather pattern screams winter with high pressure over the top and storminess underneigh..

We got a long stretch ahead folks! Buckle up.