Thursday Update: Final Forecast & Evolution of Tonight's Storm

Good morning. Below is my final forecast for tonight into Friday's storm. I tried to put more detail into the map and isolate different impact areas. The storm moves in late tonight and the ice is at its worst through tomorrow morning. It will taper off by tomorrow afternoon. Overall for anyone NW-I95 this will be a nasty ice event with all snow to our far north.

Here is my final forecast, there will be a video update at 7pm tonight:

 

Summary:

• Storm approaches the region late tonight with an initial burst of snow in areas of the orange zones and freezing rain in pink zone.
• snow can accumulate a few inches before it changes to sleet in orange zones

• As we enter the overnight hours, the snow will change to sleet in the orange zones and freezing rain in the purple zones.

• By daybreak, ice is accumulating in the purple and orange zones with a transition to rain in the pink zone. Heavy snow is breaking out to the far north

• Storm then tapers off by early afternoon with light freezing rain for all interior areas in orange and purple zones

• For the Green zone, this is mostly a rain event

Lets take a look at model projections. My forecast is based on more than one model, but this is still a good representation...

The storm moves in just before midnight with snow to the north and ice to the south...

By daybreak Friday, ice is working its way into all areas NW of I-95 with snow to the north. This is where folks in NW NJ etc will hear sleet outside...

It is snowing heavy across New England at this time.

By mid morning, a nasty mix of freezing rain and sleet continues NW of I-95 with a transition to rain in areas closer to the coasts in NJ...

Storm then starts to taper off by early afternoon...

There are still some small details to work out with this system. We will have plenty of cold air out ahead, which means the ice part is pretty locked in. How far south the initial burst of snow gets however is still unclear. Some models have accumulating snow hitting all of NNJ tonight while others show sleet with snow more north.

I left the orange zone in 2-4" given the fact I think there can be some initial front end snow and then heavy sleet.

It will all come down to how the models are handling this cold high pressure system ahead of the storm (supplies cold air)...

If by tonight we see the nose of that high (seem in brown and dark red) further south than what you see modeled above, then we have the shot for a little more front end snow.

Stay tuned. I will have a video update tonight at 7pm.