Monday, January 10, 2011

Eastern Mass slammed with another 1-2 feet while MRG settles for 5-10

A once very disorganized storm system with one center near the Atlantic Coast and another crossing the Mississippi Valley will converge and subsequently explode off the New Jersey coast. The bombing has forecasters scrambling to catch up since this storm system only a few days ago looked as though it may take a very innocent track into the Atlantic Ocean. Now it appears the storm responsible for the ice and snow over Georgia and the Carolina's will deepen by at least while swallowing its counterpart to the west. An area of light to moderate snow which will impact the Mid Atlantic Tuesday night will become heavy snow over southern New England Wednesday. Light to moderate snow will also make its way into Vermont and reach General Stark around daybreak accumulating perhaps an inch or so by first tracks time. The snow will continue through much of the day before tapering to flurries in the evening. The snow will be of the cold, low density and fluffy variety allowing for the 5-10 inches although a slight shift in the storm track north or south could cause snow totals to be over or under that range.

It may be frustrating to watch the folks in Massachusetts steal our epic snow, but we do have at least two systems over the next week that have a great chance of bearing fruit after Wednesday. After a mostly dry Thursday and Friday, a clipper system will approach from the Great Lakes and spread snow into interior New England late Saturday or early Sunday. The snow from this system might not amount to much but the weakening system will lay the groundwork for a baraclinic or overrunning area to establish itself across the region. This is a very typical looking set up in a La Nina year but glaringly absent this year. If we can get things to go according to plan there will be a zone within this overrunning area that receives periods of light to moderate snow over a several day period. In this case the Sunday to Tuesday time frame could be such a period and a very good one for skiing hopefully.

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