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My interest in weather has been with me since I was young. I am a freshman at Rutgers Business School, where I am studying supply chain management. Why am I not studying Meteorology? That is a good question.
It looks like models have converged on a solution for our storm track. It will develop in the deep South and track around Virginia and slide off their coast. Gulf moisture will give this storm some energy and bring moderate to heavy snowfall amounts to part of the Mid-Atlantic states. Meanwhile, areas North-Northeast of Philly will remain dry with maybe a few bursts of snow showers. Temperatures today and tomorrow will approach 50+ degrees, so whatever snow fall on Sunday, if any, will NOT stick.
First thing is first, our low is going to take the blue track, not the red one. There are many factors going against a ?phased? storm system, keeping it South. Here are a list of a few:
Those are the 4 main reasons why no one North-Northeast of Philly will not see any accumulating snow. Now let?s take a look at the 500mb charts off the 12z NAM model to get a clearer look at this.
I know this is rather confusing to the novice people, but I will break it down as best as I can. Labeled in purple numbers are the factors I explained above that will keep our storm supressed.
1. The short-wave located in the Midwest is getting slown down by the ULL crashing into the Pac. NW, hence no phasing of the storm with the Southern stream. Not only that, but look at the general flow of our upper levels around the Great Lakes region. It is very progressive and it extends back into the Northeast (North of the solid dark green line).
2. As I just alluded to, we have a zonal flow North of the Mason-Dixon line while heights are rising in the Southeast. Our storm is able to get North enough to provide the Mid-Atlantic with good snow, but once it hits the zonal boundary it just take a turn due East and out to sea.
4. Our 50/50 low is ill-positioned for folks in the Northeast. Our best bet was to see if this 50/50 low can weaken and provide less confluence over our area, but that did not turn out to be the case. The zonal wind flow between our ULL and 50/50 low is simply too strong to get any storm up this way. Everything is progressive and moving fast!
5. As mentioned earlier, the ULL crashing into the Pac. NW is smushing whatever ridge tried to develop. This is either a case of bad luck or bad timing, I would say both! If we had a stable ridge over the Western half of our country, there is a much MORE likely shot of our storm coming up the coast and providing everyone with a nice snowfall.
In simple terms, the upper levels did not support an I-95 special. The dreaded winter for many folks across the Northeast continues, as temperatures today and tomorrow will approach and surpass the 50?s. February remains +7 above normal.
My interest in weather has been with me since I was young. I am a freshman at Rutgers Business School, where I am studying supply chain management. Why am I not studying Meteorology? That is a good question.