The 2nd storm in our trilogy was just beginning to reestablish itself along the Carolina/Virginia coastline Sunday afternoon. Ultimately this low pressure area will become the primary storm while continuing to both intensify and move very quickly off to the northeast. It's not a bad looking storm actually and quite capable of delivering a lot of snowfall to the interior northeast if it had more time to mature before exiting stage right. As the coastal low really starts to crank Sunday night into early Monday it will serve to consolidate much of the precipitation and produce a very narrow corridor of heavy snowfall; which, according to model data falls over portions of the Berkshires, southern Vermont and the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. The MRV isn't totally left out in the cold here and should procure a few inches through midday Monday but if the storm follows the latest data we would be left out of the heavy snow. It's close enough and tight enough that a small northward shift could change the outcome because even 20 miles on Rt 100 could make all the difference. It's just tough to get overly bullish on these types of systems if they track southeast of the Cape, even just a little bit. With that said, my thinking is 3-6 inches with a chance for a bit more if that magical northward shift were to happen.
Tracking southeast of Cape Cod is certainly not the issue with Wednesday/Thursday event. A storm that continues to appear the most potent of the three and also the coldest of the three even though this area of low pressure is expected to come right at us or just south of us. The weather is not expected to be especially cold out ahead of this storm Tuesday; in fact, we have to issue the "el torchy" advisory since strong south to southwest winds are expected to warm temperatures up to as high as 40 degrees Tuesday afternoon even as clouds and snow showers begin to develop from north to south along the spine of the Green Mountains. As I mentioned Friday, this is an important push of cold air that will slide in just in front of the approaching storm laying the ground work for what appears to be a very nice setup for heavy snow on Wednesday. Model data continues to push the idea of a primary low pressure center moving northeast over Toledo or southern Michigan and then transferring part of or all of its energy toward a developing coastal area of low pressure. I would like to see a nice clean transfer because if we can't keep the primary low pressure area south of us, we risk both a change to sleet and a dry slot. Even with all that, I think the outcome looks pretty darn good with a hefty front end thump of powdery snow Wednesday afternoon and evening, a possible change to some sleet very early Thursday (it's close according to several models) and then some additional terrain enhance snow Thursday. Hopefully we can keep the event all snow but it should be a very positive outcome for the northern mountains regardless with 10 or more inches my initial guess.
We have some colder weather arriving for Friday though the core of some pretty intense arctic cold is expected to mostly miss New England at least initially. A clipper system (yes they still do exist) will try and bring some of that cold eastward for Sunday and Monday but the clipper appears pretty far north to promise any big additional snowfall. Once this colder La Nina regime settles in though, we are again staged for some intriguing results. We just need to stay on the cold side of what should be an intense clash between mild air over the southeast U.S. and arctic cold to our north. Early indications would suggest this is very attainable leaving us with really good opportunities for more snow as we move toward and into early February. It will be very nice to have some arctic air on our north flank again finally.
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