MLK weekend storm track solidifying and it looks to be a good one but a cold one

Let the games begin as they like to say ! New England remains one of the most intriguing places to experience a winter and much of what will happen over the next two weeks underscores this. Arctic air steps in the New England side door Thursday and then takes a half step out on Friday only to take a full a decisive step in over the weekend into early next week. We can expect a little snow early Friday morning thanks moisture from the remnants of a dinky Pacific system. The big storm is obviously still coming over the weekend and we remain well positioned for significant snowfall.

The news relating to this storm is basically good as of Wednesday morning. Us forecasters had watched a very gradual but steady northward trend in the storm track from one set of models to the next but this trend has stopped as of  late on Tuesday and a solid consensus of data has been established which basically has this impressive looking system tracking from Memphis, TN Saturday evening to Washington DC Sunday Morning and eventually ride the southern New England coastline Sunday evening. The Pats are not playing the AFC championship game at home this Sunday but if they did, what a fun game that would be to watch. This expected track is a very good one for most of Vermont and especially good in central and northern Vermont where very cold air will be well entrenched. Snow will begin Saturday evening and become heavy during the overnight hours with a steadily increasing northeast wind that will become fierce out of the due north during the day Sunday. The snow should taper off Sunday evening or at least lessen to flurries  and then bitterly cold air will be hammered into New England sending readings within a few degrees of -15 by Monday morning. MLK day itself looks colder today verses a few days ago, with both strong winds and sub-zero temperatures throughout. No doubt there will be some fresh turns but as they also like to say, you will have to earn them. And I almost forgot about accumulations. Lets keep these at about 1-2 feet since the storm appears to be a quick mover. It will be a cold and wind-blown 1-2 feet however with temperatures in the single numbers throughout the storm and a lot lower as I mentioned after the storm.

The drama is likely to continue as next week progresses. Yes arctic air will win out for holiday weekend but might get threatened late in the week as the mean trough in the jet stream is expected to shift westward. How profound is this  slight shift will ultimately determine whether we have to introduce some alternative or unwanted precipitation types into the forecast. Its hard to say right now but as I mentioned on Monday, anything pretty much goes late next week and I do think we will be contending with yet another substantial east coast storm. Temperatures which will obviously start the week brutally cold but will moderate, and potentially moderate dramatically. By Wednesday, readings will be back at normal and could go above normal very late in the week but even if the latter were to happen, it would only be temporary.

This brings us to the outlook for the last weekend of January and beyond into early February. There has been talk, insane amounts of talk and blogs and tweets suggesting a historic arctic outbreak. Historic both in terms of intensity and historic in terms of duration with cold persisting through much of the month of February. I am convinced that there are way too many weather personalities with some sort of attention seeking personality disorder that feel it necessary to one-up one another on the hype scale as a means getting people to notice. To be fair, the whole "clickbait" media environment which has exploded since the SCWB began has likely fueled a  lot of this and perhaps has forced many otherwise level-headed weather folks into this mode. The Capital Weather Gang which is a terrific group of people that report on weather related news in the Washington Post released something yesterday insinuating incredible cold through much of February.

Polar Vortex to punish eastern United States

The article is a well-reasoned piece citing what we know about the split in the polar vortex which occurred early in the month and the SSW that occurred last month that often fuels outbreaks of cold. The relationship however is not a perfect one and the weather is incredibly chaotic. Us forecasters have enough trouble getting day 10 right no less weather a month from now. I thus found the piece to be especially one-sided.

That being said, the end of January does look especially cold. The EPO which is a measure of the jet stream in the Pacific is expected to relax and the jet stream is indeed very blocked. If there is a warm-up late next week, it will be short-lived and quickly replaced by much colder air by January 26th (Saturday). Bitterly cold temperatures are likely to then continue through the rest of the month and for at least a short time, it is the kind of jet stream configuration capable of suppressing the southern stream of the jet stream. Snowfall late in the month could still come by means of terrain enhancement and clippers. Beyond that, the weather pattern is likely to continue to evolve. I am optimistic for snowfall at MRG but I am very pessimistic about the accuracy of forecasting extreme temperatures beyond two weeks out with good accuracy, at least with 2019 technology.